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We’ve had an incredible year and the wins keep on coming! Thrilled to come out on top of Tekpon’s assessment as their Best <a href="https://tekpon.com/categories/sales-acceleration-software/">Sales Acceleration Software</a> for 2022! As Tekpon best puts it, a sales acceleration tool helps you drive your sales strategy to result in “better resource usage, revenue boost, better sales tracking, improved productivity, business growth with automation, and better prospects conversion.” That’s very much what we’re about.Among the sales acceleration solutions that were evaluated, we think we came out on top for - a whole bunch of reasons, really. But we believe that the biggest reason is this - we’ve redefined what the modern sales stack should look like.We know how hard it is to sell. Sales acceleration solutions are supposed to change that, not add another layer of complexity. But that isn’t always the case. We’ve seen many sales teams struggle with an overly complex tech stack that has them jumping from tool to tool, wasting precious time on non-revenue tasks. We’ve seen teams use a sales acceleration software for emails, another one for calls, a few different data sources..That’s a lot to juggle, and a LOT of bills to pay.&nbsp;We wanted to change that.&nbsp;Outplay is an <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features">all-in-one</a> sales acceleration software for the modern sales team. We help teams prospect, engage, track and SELL - all from one platform. One-click prospecting, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">multichannel outreach</a>, outbound sales automations, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/track-prospects">prospect tracking</a>, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/sales-analytics">reports</a>..the capabilities are endless. And easy (truly). So easy that it literally takes <a href="https://outplayhq.com/chrome-extension">just a few clicks</a> to add your prospect from LinkedIn, and assign them to an automated multi-channel sequence. No switching tabs or tools. NOT ONCE! Outplay is great to monitor your interactions, learn from them and train your reps too. ‍

We want to make sure that sales teams feel empowered to do what they do best. And that they focus all their energy and time on doing just that. Not on setting up tasks or uploading lists. A sales acceleration software has to work as one powerful unit with your CRM to help you really drive revenue growth. We enable that with native, two-way integrations that means that data from one place flows into another. No duplications, no manual uploads.We told you. At the core of everything we do is our mission to make selling easy.&nbsp;

<a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo?utm_source=Outplay-Blog&amp;utm_medium=Tekpon-Announcement-Blog&amp;utm_campaign=Tekpon-Announcement-Blog-CTA"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Demo_d375235330.jpeg" alt="Demo.jpeg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Demo_d375235330.jpeg 245w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Demo_d375235330.jpeg 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Demo_d375235330.jpeg 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Demo_d375235330.jpeg 1000w," sizes="100vw"></a>&nbsp;And your success matters to us more than you would know. Which is why free white glove onboarding and fast 21/5 support are something we will never compromise on.&nbsp;

<a href="https://outplayhq.com/case-study">Here's what our customer's say about us.</a>Recognitions like these make us reflect on exactly why we do what we do, what we are doing right, and how we can do more of it. And this time is no different. Our customers, and sales teams across the globe - they’re the fuel to our efforts. Learning that our customers are booking more meetings than ever, SELLING more than ever, driving greater revenue...that’s what drives us. And recognitions like these tell us that we’re on the right track.&nbsp;What’s next? Wait and watch!

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Outplay is Tekpon’s Best Sales Acceleration Software for 2022!

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We are really excited to announce the launch of Outplay’s newest feature - <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/sales-prospecting-tool">Lead Sourcing</a>. Our sales prospecting database gives you access to real-time verified data for 850 million professionals across 35 million companies, worldwide.&nbsp;Using this vital information, you can not only identify promising leads but also engage them on the same platform. This will invariably speed up your sales cycle and help you rise against your competition.Our sales prospecting tool makes lead sourcing feel like a breeze. Here’s what you can do when you choose Outplay:<h1>‍Get access to the latest error-free data</h1><figure class="image"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/63468a05f97088503c3e574b_OP_Lead_sourcing_Screens_Steer_clear_of_stale_contact_info_1_5cbfacd1bd.png"></figure>We know how frustrating viewing outdated contact and company information can be. But with Outplay you can steer clear of stale information, as you access the most accurate and refreshed prospect information from the widest data pool in the market. You can now prospect efficiently without the fear of having duplicate prospect records.<h1>Identify and reach the right prospects at scale</h1>Outplay’s accurate prospecting database cuts down on the time lost on sourcing websites and lead qualification. Choose from an array of filters that display data right from the lead names, job titles, and job changes all the way to their company location, revenue, funding announcements, and more. This way you can reach the right prospects at scale and use the saved time to crack other major deals.<h1>Manage contact lists smoothly</h1>Outplay’s smart filters make it easy for you to search through relevant contact and company information, for leads that match your ICP. You can then save, export, and manage these contact lists in just a few clicks to later engage them effectively.&nbsp;<h1>Enrich leads and engage them on a single platform</h1><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_2_87d294f816.png" alt="Image 2.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_2_87d294f816.png 221w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_2_87d294f816.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Image_2_87d294f816.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Image_2_87d294f816.png 1000w," sizes="100vw">Access to the latest database on our sales prospecting tool means you can enrich the leads faster and boost your sales qualification process. You can also engage these prospects effectively on Outplay, without the need to switch apps. Simply add the prospects to 100% automated and personalized sequences and connect with them on multiple sales channels with a single click.&nbsp;<img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_3_8b6e4a6b25.png" alt="Image 3.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_3_8b6e4a6b25.png 221w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_3_8b6e4a6b25.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Image_3_8b6e4a6b25.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Image_3_8b6e4a6b25.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"><h1>Nurture high-intent leads with sales intelligence</h1>Intelligent AI capabilities in our sales prospecting tool include hot leads, objection handling, and battle cards. Once you qualify leads and engage them, you can use these capabilities to help you in handling objections and nurturing high-intent leads.<h1>Take prospecting wherever you go with Outplay Connect</h1><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_4_bd0dfeff82.png" alt="Image 4.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_4_bd0dfeff82.png 221w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_4_bd0dfeff82.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Image_4_bd0dfeff82.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Image_4_bd0dfeff82.png 1000w," sizes="100vw">With our Chrome extension - Outplay Connect, you can engage prospects from anywhere. Whether you are checking your email, reading an article on Medium, or using LinkedIn, you can capture prospects in a single click. Outplay is extremely fluid and is designed to take prospecting to a new level.<h1>‍Only pay for what you access <img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_5_789b4d1014.png" alt="Image 5.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_5_789b4d1014.png 221w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_5_789b4d1014.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Image_5_789b4d1014.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Image_5_789b4d1014.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"></h1>You get access to real-time verified data for 850 million professionals spread across 35 million companies from around the world on our B2B prospecting tool. Search for the relevant information matching your ICP, make lists, qualify and engage prospects - all without huge yearly contracts but with a simple pay-as-you-go model.<h1>Bottom line</h1>In essence, Outplay’s sales prospecting tool will save you a lot of precious time that is otherwise lost in mundane activities that go into lead sourcing and qualification. With lead sourcing, prospect, engage and sell from the same platform!Find out more about our new feature <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/sales-prospecting-tool">here</a>

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Introducing Lead Sourcing by Outplay: Fast-track your Growth with Our Sales Prospecting Tool

<ul><li>Increase year-over-year revenue by 30%.</li><li>Reduce customer churn rate by less than 1% in 2022.</li><li>Boost quarterly win rates by 15%.</li><li>Increase the number of leads qualified per month by 22%.</li></ul>Do these look similar to your sales goals? And also remind you of the times you couldn’t hit them?Well, sales is tough!Whether you are a sales rookie or have been around for a while, making a mark in the sales world is no easy feat. It takes more than just reading numerous sales books and attending conferences.You need to put in years of commitment and specialize in various areas to truly thrive. But just like any other field, you really can’t ace it unless you have a strong base.Lucky for you, you’re in the right place. We have identified that amongst the many things that will contribute to this goal, outbound prospecting is one of the most crucial levers you can exercise. Because the truth is, high-value opportunities don’t always come through inbound signups and in order to hit your larger-than-life revenue goals, outbound sales prospecting is a must-have.Even data shows that <a href="https://salesinsightslab.com/sales-research/">55% of leads generated</a> by businesses are from outbound prospecting. It is thus a no-brainer why this way of sales prospecting plays such an important role in sales development structure and processes for teams focusing primarily on enterprise accounts.And hence, in this post, you’ll find a simple guide to outbound prospecting using which you’ll not only hit your sales targets but also overachieve them.<h1>So, what is outbound prospecting after all?</h1>Sales prospecting is usually done in two ways viz. outbound and inbound.Outbound prospecting begins with identifying potential customers, contacting them via cold calls and emails, and pitching your product/ service. You then carefully nurture them over time and keep them engaged through a series of touchpoints such as demos, evaluations, negotiations, and contracting until they become a customer.Inbound on the other hand focuses on creating brand awareness through - search engine optimization (SEO), social media, events, content marketing, and blogs amongst others. In short, by focusing on visibility and engagement, the inbound method generates leads helping potential customers discover your company.Although sales prospecting is categorized into these two types, please note that you cannot succeed merely by employing one of the above. You must efficiently use both to see the desired results.For the scope of this article we’ll be focusing on a simple outbound prospecting framework you can deploy with the current resources you have and scale organically as you start seeing results.<h1>The Three-Pronged Outbound Prospecting Framework&nbsp;</h1>As an SDR, your most important goal is to consistently build pipelines by creating high-value opportunities for your AEs to close. Here’s a three-pronged approach that can take off in no time helping you change your demand generation game for the good.&nbsp; &nbsp;1. Targeting &nbsp; &nbsp;2. Prospecting&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;3. Outreach<h1>1. Targeting</h1>There is a popular quote by Jeroen De Flander, that goes, “You cannot be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you cannot go south at the same time”. This is especially true when it comes to outbound sales targeting. Because although you have a great product that you believe in, it can’t be a great fit for the entire market. It can only cater to some parts of the market that are most likely to buy and that’s what you must chase.As someone who is trying to make it big in sales, you must understand that targeting is where the whole game begins. It helps you align your focus and run behind what is known in the business world as the Total Addressable Market (TAM). In simple words, TAM is the demand your product or service has in the market as a whole. It is calculated in <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/total-addressable-market?__hstc=210964170.e21659fbef8295f8f20b5d827f5e9e92.1669818772818.1672835375258.1672854822795.39&amp;__hssc=210964170.12.1672854822795&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">three ways</a> namely the top-down, bottom-up, and value theory.The first method requires you to gather data via market research and identify the businesses you should target. The bottom-up method is where you multiply the average contract value (by multiplying your average sales price by the number of your current customers) and the total number of customers. The final method is where you estimate the value your potential customers can receive from your product and what amount they’d be willing to pay.Knowing the TAM helps you focus on the right customer profile in an effective, efficient, and affordable fashion. You can also estimate the revenue you will possibly generate by selling your product to potential clients.Once you identify the TAM, the next step is to pick the top accounts also known as ‘named accounts’ (specific company or organization) whose interest you need to garner, in order to generate a high-value pipeline and then turn them into opportunities and customers. These are usually known as Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts as they have a very high ticket size and disproportionately increase your revenue.<h1>2. Prospecting</h1>Today there are countless businesses launching their ‘perfect products and solutions’ in the market. Owing to which consumer skepticism is at an all-time high! The all-accepting, gullible consumers have now evolved into critical and self-aware buyers equipped with information gathered through individual research.No wonder, it takes <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/insights/b2b-buying-journey#:~:text=The%20typical%20buying%20group%20for,must%20deconflict%20with%20the%20group.">6-10 people</a> within an organization to make one B2B buying decision. With so many people involved, as a sales rep, you are no longer selling just to the one lead but to multiple stakeholders. And picking named accounts gives you the opportunity to engage multiple people within an organization and get group consensus.In a sales process multiple stakeholders wear multiple hats and what prospecting essentially does is helps you find the right customers for your product. Simply put you identify who the buyers, gatekeepers, influencers, blockers, decision-makers, and champions are.But how do you get in touch with these other people? Well, you first contact the initial lead and get to others through them. Another way is to dig deeper using social media platforms such as LinkedIn or using popular platforms such as ZoomInfo and reaching out to relevant contacts. This way you can cut your losses fast by avoiding the powerless tire-kickers and reach the decision-makers faster.Once you are hundred percent certain whom to reach, you can start moving to the third and most important step of outbound prospecting which is outreach.<h1>3. Outreach</h1>Outreach means reaching out. It essentially shows your ability to deliver your product or service details to your prospective customer so that they find value and get interested in evaluating it. Outreach begins when you first make contact with your potential clients and continues till you successfully close the deal.The most important skill that will help you sell is when you can solve the customer's pain point with your product. Hence when you contact various people within the named accounts you must remember that not everyone’s needs are the same. You must customize your pitch as you move from one contact to the other and help them understand how the product is a right fit for them.Here are some statistics to help you understand how customers want to be engaged during various buying stages. <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/buyers-speak-out-how-sales-needs-to-evolve?__hstc=210964170.e21659fbef8295f8f20b5d827f5e9e92.1669818772818.1672835375258.1672854822795.39&amp;__hssc=210964170.12.1672854822795&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">19%</a> of buyers want to talk to you in the awareness stage, <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/buyers-speak-out-how-sales-needs-to-evolve?__hstc=210964170.e21659fbef8295f8f20b5d827f5e9e92.1669818772818.1672835375258.1672854822795.39&amp;__hssc=210964170.12.1672854822795&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">60%</a> want to connect during the consideration stage and finally, <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/buyers-speak-out-how-sales-needs-to-evolve?__hstc=210964170.e21659fbef8295f8f20b5d827f5e9e92.1669818772818.1672835375258.1672854822795.39&amp;__hssc=210964170.12.1672854822795&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">20%</a> prefer talking to you during the decision-making stage. These statistics indicate the amount of scope you have to engage the prospects. You should make good use of the various sales channels at your disposal and get engaging.But, we understand how difficult the sales job is, and while you have the remaining things under outbound prospecting to master, leave the outreach to us. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a> is a new-age sales engagement platform and we automate sales like never before. Opt for a <a href="https://accounts.outplayhq.com/signup">14-day free trial</a> now and see how much more time you’ll have to focus on what you are good at.

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Mastering the basics of Outbound Prospecting

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Outbound Sales Prospecting 101

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<h1>Table of Content</h1><ul><li><a href="#What-is-a-sales-cycle">What is a sales cycle?</a></li><li><a href="#benefits-of-having-a-sales-cycle">What are the benefits of having a sales cycle?</a></li><li><a href="#Who-needs-a-sales-cycle">Who needs a sales cycle?</a></li><li><a href="#The-seven-stages-of-a-B2B-sales-cycle">The seven stages of a B2B sales cycle</a></li><li><a href="#Making-the-most-of-your-sales-cycle">Making the most of your sales cycle</a></li></ul>Sales is an art best practiced with discipline and attention to detail. Even the most seasoned salespeople would agree that you cannot wing it when it comes to sales if you wish to build a sustainable pipeline.Whether you are a newbie to sales or have been in the field for quite some time, there is a lot to gain from learning about the sales cycle stages. We are here to take you through them, so you sell can like a pro.

<h2>What is a sales cycle?</h2>A sales cycle is a blueprint that organizations and their salespersons can rely on to boost the efficiency of their sales processes. Stages that follow a chronology to yield smooth conversions and long-term clients make up a sales cycle.Breaking down your full sales cycle into stages is the best way to establish a sustainable and scalable sales process that leads to real-life conversions. The sales cycle stages enable you to train your sales reps, make sales estimates and evaluate performance.

<h2>What are the benefits of having a sales cycle?</h2>An established sales cycle brings several benefits to all aspects of a business. These are some qualitative and quantitive benefits you can expect to achieve:<ul><li>Adds structure to the sales process and makes tracking the prospect’s journey easier by clearly defining stages &nbsp;</li><li>Simplifies sales rep training by creating a scalable model &nbsp;</li><li>Fosters an effective team structure by letting you quantitatively assess the sales rep's performance &nbsp;</li><li>Makes measuring the efficacy of the current sales process and forecasting revenue simpler &nbsp;</li><li>Aids in turning customers into long-term synergistic partners</li></ul>

<h2>Who needs a sales cycle?</h2>Whether you are a one-person army or lead a team of salespeople, a sales cycle allows you to track and evaluate performance objectively. This transparency aids constant evaluation and growth to improve your sales process. Knowing the stages of a sales cycle can leave you with wisdom, whether you are an entrepreneur, salesperson or marketing professional.

<h2>The seven stages of a B2B sales cycle</h2>You may find a few variations of the B2B sales cycle stages. They are all built on the same foundational concepts. For this article, we will break the sales cycle into seven stages.

<h4>1. Prospect</h4>Prospecting is like planting the right seeds to yield the results you desire. It is the first and most valuable stage of the sales process.When prospecting, control lies with the salesperson. This stage needs to consist of strategies to discover your target customers and generate sales-qualified leads (SQLs).Your strategies need to have a 360-degree approach, so you do not leave out any business on the table. Take into account the people you know, people your salespeople know, and brand new prospects you can discover through tools and campaigns.Upon prospecting, your lead enters the sales pipeline and waits to enter the next stage of your sales cycle.<h4>2. Connect</h4>As the name suggests, connect is the stage where you make first contact with the leads you have prospected in the last step.Today, there are multiple methods of making first contact- at an in-person event, getting an introduction through someone, connecting on a professional social media platform like LinkedIn, or even writing an email (<a href="https://www.rainsalestraining.com/resources/sales-white-papers/5-sales-prospecting-myths-debunked">preferred by eight out of ten prospects</a>).Choose your first-contact method wisely. It can play a significant role in how the rest of your sales process with the client goes. The purpose of connecting is not to make the sale right away but rather to introduce yourself, present your solution, identify the decision-makers, and gauge interest so you can transition them to the next stage.<h4>‍3. Discovery</h4>The Discovery step of the stages of a sales cycle is the part where you determine how precise your prospecting was. Once you establish first contact with your prospect and they agree to learn more about the solution you have to offer, the natural progression is to arrange a discovery call.A discovery call is your chance to understand the prospect's pain points and empathize. It is also when you know if your solution can solve their problem and if they have the capacity and intention to adopt what you are offering.Research shows about <a href="https://www.marcwayshak.com/sales-statistics/">50% of prospects</a> are not a good fit for what you sell. At the end of the discovery call, you will be able to ascertain if you are a good fit for your prospect’s needs. You can also base your next stage basis the information you have received at the discovery stage.<h4>‍4. Present</h4>The Present stage is your time to be the showstopping salesperson and sweep your client off their feet.If you assess your prospect as a good fit after the discovery call, you can invite them for a presentation meeting. You can use a sales pitch for this stage. Having a visual presentation makes your overall presentation more effective too. If you are a SAAS company, you can use this stage of your software sales cycle stages to give the prospect a demo of your platform.Always allow room within your sales presentation to customize for your prospect and address the pain points they mentioned on the discovery call. Customization makes the prospect feel heard and cared for.<h4>5. Objections</h4>Objections, concerns, and questions can come in from your prospect while you are in the presentation stage or after it. Every sale comes with objections to be managed, but the scale of these in each may vary. <a href="https://research.hubspot.com/charts/sales-has-trouble-establishing-urgency-and-connecting?_ga=2.90155163.1646592801.1649340252-1123596011.1644941219&amp;__hstc=210964170.af7b2cf1287eb0846d87d6daf3976fbc.1669887171132.1673432502370.1673435013645.66&amp;__hssc=210964170.48.1673435013645&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">35% of salespeople</a> mention overcoming price objections as their biggest challenge.Consider how you handle the objections as a part of your presentation. However, instead of reassuring the benefits of your product/service, assure the client of your competency as a team and that they would enjoy working with you in the long run. Resolve your prospect’s concerns with confidence, objectivity, and empathy.<h4>6. Deal won</h4>This is an exciting stage of the sales cycle! Closing the deal or as the salespeople say, “asking for the close.”Once you have resolved your prospect’s objections, it is time to ask them if they are ready to make the purchase. This question can have two possible outcomes. If they say yes, you can proceed with the legalities. In case they say no, you can probe further to find objections.Prospects who aren’t ready to make the deal yet can be moved back to the previous stage of the sales cycle. You can transition them to the closing stage again once you have cleared any complaints. Do not lose hope; <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/sale-follow-ups/">60% of clients</a> tend to say no four times before they say yes.<h4>7. Follow-up</h4>As the excitement of the sale slowly fades, it is time to pull your socks back up and get to the Follow-up stage.Following up is a step most salespeople and organizations miss out on, but it holds massive potential. Research shows that about <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/sale-follow-ups/">48% of salespersons do not follow up</a>. Consistent follow-ups help you retain customers and get feedback.You can also maximize the value you receive from your sale during this stage by getting the client to leave reviews on your listings, website, or social media. If your client is satisfied with your solution, you can also request referrals or up-sell other offerings.Often ignored, the follow-up stage is one of the stages of the sales cycle that can bring you gains you have not considered and foster relationships that go beyond one sale.

<h2>Making the most of your sales cycle</h2>An efficient sales cycle comes about when you constantly track, evaluate, and re-adjust. No cookie-cutter model works for all organizations. Start with a tried and tested foundation like the seven sales cycle stages and build from there.Encourage discipline and attention to detail among your team while allowing space for conducting the sale comfortably. Having the groundwork right enables you and your salespeople to perform to their maximum potential and get impressive results.Leverage technology to monitor your prospects as they journey through the stages of the sales cycle. Opt for a sales engagement platform like <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a> that lets you conduct multichannel outreach, create smart sales sequences, and get sales insights, among many other unique features. <a href="https://accounts.outplayhq.com/signup">Sign up today</a>.

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The B2B Sales Cycle and its 7 Stages

<h1>Table of Contents</h1><ul><li><a href="#Customer-Pain-Points">Customer Pain Points - Complicated or Easily Correctable?</a></li><li><a href="#Identifying-Customer-Pain-Points">Identifying Customer Pain Points</a></li><li><a href="#Solving-Customer-Pain-Points">Solving Customer Pain Points</a></li><li><a href="#To-Sum-Up">To Sum Up</a></li></ul>If there’s one aspect every sales representative needs to get right, it’s understanding their audiences' needs. Customers have a variety of challenges that need addressing, and as a sales rep, it’s your job to respond to those challenges in satisfactory ways. Understanding customers' journeys and identifying their pain points helps build your business credibility and establish long-term relationships.Did you know that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2017/12/05/five-trends-shaping-the-future-of-customer-experience-in-2018/?sh=2e3687832d9c">75% of companies</a> believe that their top objective is to improve their customer experience strategies? Knowing how to remove customer pain points can also help you implement and deliver the right customer experiences.Before we delve into how you can identify and solve your customers' pain points, let’s look at what customer pain points are.

<h1 style="margin-left:0px;">Customer Pain Points - Complicated or Easily Correctable?</h1>In the context of business, customer pain points are the specific problems that your customers experience. These problems can be diverse. There are even customers who are not even sure of what their problems or pain points are, making it difficult for marketers to focus on what needs to be solved.Typically, pain points can be divided into the following categories:1. Financial: Customers looking to reduce their expenses or spend2. Process: Customers looking to improve internal business processes through streamlining or automation3. People: Customers looking to improve workforce productivity and efficiency‍‍4. Support: Customers looking for better support during their sales process or customer journey5. Productivity: Customers looking for more efficient ways to conduct businessLet’s take a deeper look into each of these customer pain points and understand how they can best be solved

<h1 style="margin-left:0px;">Identifying Customer Pain Points</h1>Understanding customers' pain points are key to your business’ success. As a sales rep, it’s your job to help the customer understand how you can solve their problems. It will likely make them more engaged and interested in what you have to offer.But before you jump on the bandwagon and start providing customers with solutions, it’s prudent to identify their pain points. Here are some ways you can do this:<ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Conduct Surveys: Interest your customers in online surveys where you ask them for specific information. During the surveys asking targeted questions are a great way to understand customers and their challenges better. &nbsp;</li><li>Use Social Listening: Social listening helps to track customer needs and wants and find out what your potential customers are looking for. It is usually how brands and businesses get to know what customers are looking for online, on search engines, and on social media channels. &nbsp;</li><li>Use Live Chats: Many businesses and brands have a live chat feature on their website where customers can interact with a chatbot. The bot captures information about the problems customers face on a regular basis.</li></ul>Identifying the customer pain points is a prerequisite to solving the challenges faced by them. This, in turn, has a positive impact on customer loyalty and retention.

<h1 style="margin-left:0px;">Solving Customer Pain Points</h1><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">1. Financial pain points</h2>Customers generally undergo financial pain when their expenditures increase, spending is high but not as ROI driven or ROI efficient, or spending leads to financial strain on the business. Examples of financial pain points can be high subscription plans, payment of membership fees, repeated purchases, etc.In this respect, a customer looks at a business to help cut down on the financial strain, reduce spending, and find a way to make more efficient expenditures. Following are some of the common pain points your customers might be facing:<ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Our revenue is high, but the company is making low profits.</li><li>We could be overpaying our resources and don’t know how to cut down the expenses.</li><li>We are looking for expert guidance in making financial decisions.‍</li></ul><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">How do sales reps achieve this?</h2>The best way to attract a customer and solve their financial pain points is by emphasizing how your product can help them. You need to highlight a lower price point and tell the customer about your product’s features. This will help them understand why using your product can benefit them commercially.A great way to do this is by using testimonials or success stories to underline the average savings that you have helped your client base make. When communicating this across to the customer, make sure to help them understand how your product delivers higher ROI.When looking to offer a great customer experience, pricing plays a vital role as any customer wants to get a fair value for money. Some ways to do this is by comparing the price of your offerings with your competitors, keeping a check on the subscribers/members, consultation fee, service cost, or monthly in-app purchases using tools and spreadsheets.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Pro Tips</h2><ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Take qualitative feedback to understand the response data. Offer your customers value for money by offering simple and new features to make them understand if your product or service is worth their investment.</li><li>Use featured landing pages, webinars, and testimonials to display product features, so your customers understand the quality of services offered by you.</li></ul><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">2. Process pain points</h2>Business processes determine the smoothness and seamlessness with which the business interacts with its customers. Operational problems are a regular feature of any business. All businesses try to streamline their internal operations so that their employees and customers can be managed efficiently.Process pain points are the ones that your customers are forced to endure. Customers prefer convenience over costs. An unorganized process can affect a customer’s purchasing experience. Some process related hurdles maybe as follows:<ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>We are struggling to respond to customers’ queries faster. This is leading to a higher customer churn rate.</li><li>We need a system that will help us qualify leads.</li><li>Although we are unhappy with the current system we are working with, we are not sure how we can change to a new one.</li></ul>Process-related pain points may vary from submitting applications to ensuring a customer connects with the right department or get their queries answered with the lowest response time. Typically, every customer wants to undergo the least amount of frustration to get in touch with a business and make sure that their time is utilized in an efficient way to get the job done.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">How do sales reps achieve this?</h2>A great way for sales reps to help businesses solve process-related pain points is by highlighting how well their product is integrated with advanced technologies and is able to deliver results in a time-efficient manner. Highlight how your product can make tough tasks easier for the customer, so they can reach out to their customers better and create smoother customer experiences.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Pro Tips</h2><ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Analyze your customer needs to understand their pain points and start connecting to the processes. Educate your sales teams about what they are selling; connect to prospective customers quickly for making purchases.</li><li>Make it easy for your customers to find information on your website or app, with business hours mentioned along with FAQs and tutorials.‍</li></ul><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">3. People pain points</h2>People are the most important part of any business as it needs to find talented employees, staff, and the best people to work with. Solving people-related pain points in a business is when you need to find ways to derive maximum turnover out of your employees’ efforts.Typically, people-related pain points include:<ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Our employees are not invested in the company's success.</li><li>Employees are not used to organized workflows.</li><li>Our employee turnover rate is very high; it’s costly for the business to keep training new employees to get them integrated into the system.</li></ul>These problems leads to a discrepancy in performance, which could lead to a dent in the company’s productivity.‍<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">How do sales reps achieve this?</h2>Since people form the core of every business, it is important to pay attention to their morale. As a sales rep, focus on how your product can help a business organize, manage, and retain its employees better.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Pro Tips</h2><ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Train employees using organized workflows to enable them to derive maximum profits and achieve holistic business goals.</li><li>Train employees and teach them how to get customers on board while ensuring maximum retention.‍</li></ul><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">4. Support pain points</h2>Your customers expect you to be always there for resolving their queries quickly with utmost support quality. For alleviating your customer’s support-related pain points, you need to offer customer service and multi-channel support. Most of the customers' time is wasted when they try to contact a business to get the support they need or solve a query. Some support issues customers face are:<ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Our client rep team is unable to handle queries fast enough which is affecting our customer base.</li><li>Although we spend a considerable amount of time on marketing, we are unable to retain customers.</li><li>We don’t know how to effectively follow up with our existing customer base.</li></ul><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">How do sales reps achieve this?</h2>Support-related pain points can be overcome using certain tools and techniques that streamline the process. Make sure customer support is available across all the possible customer communication platforms such as email, live chat, phone, social media, etc.Sales reps often help their prospect or client feel like an equal or a partner by highlighting the support they can offer. In your communication as well, use words like ‘we’ and ‘us’ to help your clients feel like you are hands-on about helping them achieve their business goals.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Pro Tips</h2><ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Use real-time tools such as AI chatbots, co-browsing, and live chat and document the critical procedures that customers need to face.</li><li>Monitor customers’ feedback, their overall rating on the experience and the quality of the support offered.‍</li></ul><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">5. Productivity pain points</h2>In a business, it's the managers that help remove challenges and roadblocks for the team so that business goals are achieved in a timely manner, productivity remains high, and the business witnesses high profits. However, it's easy to fall prey to inefficiencies or wastage of time. Some inefficiencies customers commonly come across are:<ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>We are constantly missing deadlines set by clients.</li><li>We are losing a lot of our precious time in internal meetings.</li><li>Our employees are not able to complete their tasks on time.‍</li></ul><h2 style="margin-left:0px;">How do sales reps achieve this?</h2>Your job as a sales rep is to identify what is keeping a company and its employees from delivering high efficiency in terms of their work. You need to position your products as a solution to help them become more time-efficient, cost-efficient, and money-saving.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Pro Tips</h2>Make better use of your time by offering the products and solutions that align with the customer's expectations. Customers always look for convenience more than the money they are about to spend. With positive customer experiences, you get better conversion of customers into brand advocates.

<h1 style="margin-left:0px;">To Sum Up</h1>When it comes to identifying and solving customer pain points, you need to be on top of your game. From hearing your customers to reading about their requirements, you need to go all out to find ways to solve their challenges in a cost and time-efficient manner.Outplay helps you engage with prospects and customers on <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">multiple sales channels</a>. The sales engagement platform that helps your sales teams increase their pipeline while providing insights that can drive your business. The product is the right combination of automation and genuine conversations that optimize outreach across all sales channels. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Click here</a> to find out more about Outplay.

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5 Common Customer Pain Points and Tips to Solve Them

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If there is one skill that can take you on the path of becoming a successful salesperson - it’s the art of creating a good rapport with both prospects and existing customers. In fact, it is this art that helps the top SDRs and AEs out there in building harmonious relationships and long-lasting connections, thus giving rise to a good network vital for their professional success.But what is rapport building in sales and how does it work? Let’s find out.In sales, rapport building refers to the process of building cordial and cooperative relationships with another individual or business - it’s a form of gaining the other side’s trust through effective communication. Rapport building forms the basis of every business, especially against the backdrop of digital business-building in today’s post COVID-19 landscape.If you fail to relate to your clients and their needs, forging a tie or create a working relationship with them becomes challenging. And this makes rapport building in sales all the more important, because the better you know your prospect/client getting to know them, earning their trust, nurturing them and converting them into buyers becomes easy.Now that the concept is clear, let's look at some tips that'll help you build good rapport with your future customers:‍<h1>&nbsp;</h1><h1>7 Tips for Rapport Building in Sales</h1><h1>‍</h1><h2>1. Stay true to yourself (&amp; to the customer!)</h2>Authenticity is highly valued in today’s world - whether you’re selling yourself, or a product, it’s important for a customer to know the 'real thing'. In today’s dynamic business ecosystem, consumers have access to a lot of information, which makes them smell something fake from miles away. In this regard, it’s easiest to click with a customer and build trust by being authentic.In sales, being ‘yourself’ is key to building rapport with a customer. Whether you’re talking about the features of your product, your key offerings, or even complimenting the customer, aim for an honest conversation supported by a positive attitude.<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>2. Solicit friendliness</h2>Most people shy away from salespeople because of their pushiness. As a salesperson, your focus should be to get the right reaction from a prospective client - and the best way to do this is by being friendly.Of course, being friendly doesn’t entail engaging in personal conversation or forcing niceness; it simply means ensuring positive body language - a firm handshake, proper eye contact, and giving them &nbsp;the time and engagement they require to have a conversation.Another great way to be friendly with your prospect is by asking them follow-up questions to understand thier pain points in a conversational manner. If you actually listen, chances are you’ll have a lot more to discuss with your prospects.<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>3. Interest speaks louder than words</h2>When prospecting for sales, avoid having a tunnel vision. While the salespeople aim to close a deal, they sometimes forget to pay attention to their prospect’s needs.Building a rapport means being interested in what the client needs, not just what you need. You should be interested in the buyer’s experience and requirements to customize a solution that shows you’re listening to them and not just trying to sell your product.Most buyers will want to be ‘heard’; as a salesperson, if you’re looking to build rapport in sales, you’ll need to make some effort to show your buyers you’re listening to them. Practice empathy to become more aware of what the buyer is saying, instead of being ready to make your pitch.Be ready to discuss a buyer’s challenges and present them with solutions without following a sales script. It’ll show the buyer that you’re actually interested, and make them want to engage with you.<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>4. Uncover common ground</h2>One of the best ways to build a quick rapport with a customer is by finding commonalities. The more that you appear relatable to a prospect, the higher the chances of them feeling comfortable and sharing more information with you.Similarities bring people together and help foster stronger connections. Since interactions and connection-building are crucial in sales, finding some commonalities will help in taking a prospect from being a stranger to a friend and finally to a customer.Tip: Uncovering common ground doesn’t only mean sharing a meal or a cup of coffee or finding out that you and the prospect share the same interests when it comes to sports; it’s about instilling a feeling of creating a shared experience. Help the prospect understand that you are both working towards the same challenges and goals, and it will help them feel more trusting towards you.<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>5. Avoid waffling around</h2>When dealing with B2B sales prospects, there is one mantra you should always follow - to be precise, direct, and clear. Beating around the bush or giving fake compliments to your prospects will not get you far, but engaging in direct and genuine conversation will.Waffling around equates to being insincere - a trait every salesperson should avoid when building rapport with a prospect. Go beyond superficial conversation or compliments, and try to talk about something you and the buyer actually care about.Waffling isn’t only restricted to verbal communication - even when sending out emails, try to keep the communication direct so that there is little room for misinterpretation and more room for the prospect to understand your goals and asks. Directly communicating your needs is also a sign of confidence. It will take you far in terms of rapport building.<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>6. It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it</h2>According to <a href="https://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/pr/building-relationships-with-the-media/it-s-not-what-you-say-but-how-you-say-it">communication experts</a>, the best way to build rapport and trust is through your communication skills. It simply means that you should engage with the other side confidently and clearly, through not just words but a proper tone and deliver the message in a way that solicits a positive reception.When speaking to a prospect or client, ensure that there is proper eye contact, formal gesturing, and the right use of facial expressions - all of which contribute towards the other individual developing an impression of you and the business you represent.‍<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>7. Find a way to fit in</h2>Finally, rapport building is all about finding a way to fit into the other person’s ecosystem - be it the country your prospect operates in, their culture, or even their style of communication. While we’re not asking you to change yourself to suit the needs of each client, the idea is to adapt to align yourself with each client’s culture so that you can maximize your chances of success.For instance, if you speak to a prospect in France during their lunch break, they may take it negatively and cut you out before the rapport building even begins. It is because lunchtime is a sacred hour for them that you had accidentally encroached upon.<h1>&nbsp;</h1><h1>Parting thoughts: build rapport, build relationships</h1>Building rapport with clients is an art that requires discipline. Successful salespeople are highly patient when it comes to understanding their clients, each client’s needs, and meeting these needs with the right instincts and emotional intelligence. Use the above tips to hone the art of rapport-building and create more opportunities for your business.Additionally, you can explore <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a> too. Its <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">mutli-channel engagement feature</a> aids in bulding rapport by helping you engage with prospects on different sales channels. This enables you to create lasting business relationships, make big sales, and close deals more quickly. Start your <a href="https://accounts.outplayhq.com/signup">14-day free trial</a> today or request for a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo">demo</a> here.

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Rapport Building in Sales: 7 Tips to Master the Game

<h1>Table of Content&nbsp;</h1><ul><li><a href="#email_signature">What is an Email Signature?</a>&nbsp;</li><li><a href="#email_signature_benefit">How Can a Good Email Signature Benefit You?&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href="#email_signature_inspiration">Creative email signatures types for your inspiration</a>&nbsp;</li><li><a href="#email_signature_tips">Tips for Writing Killer Email Signatures&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href="#email_wrapping">Wrapping up</a>&nbsp;</li></ul>Don't you agree that the most critical part for winning a business deal is the first step of sending a cold email? It really is a make-or-break situation, and when the stakes are high, it is vital to get it right. Your ideal prospect, however, receives a ton of emails on a daily basis and your email could get easily lost in the clutter.You must now be wondering what you can do to improve the success of your email marketing campaign? Well, for starters add a subject line that is short, crisp, and actionable, followed by an email body that adds value and builds credibility. Finally, add a signature.Yes, a signature.Data reveals that <a href="https://www.soocial.com/email-signature-statistics/#:~:text=48%25%20of%20marketers%20use%20email%20signatures%20to%20bring%20traffic%20to,create%20a%20branded%20email%20signature.">48% of marketers</a> use email signatures to drive traffic to their websites. Signatures enhance the conversion rates on your emails while also making them seem professional and raising awareness of your business in a reasonably short period of time. It aids in establishing the initial impression and trust with your prospect in your first email.Now that we have established that email signatures play a pretty significant role in garnering interest, it is important to note that you as a sales rep can stand out from the hoards of other reps trying to sell to the same prospect by having a unique signature which enables great brand recall. &nbsp;As the old phrase goes the first impression is indeed the last impression and it's your job to ensure you make it a lasting impression.But before we jump into some examples that will help you stand out, let's first deep dive and understand a little more about email signatures.

<h1>What is an Email Signature?&nbsp;</h1>An email signature is a bold text, like a piece of the contact information or a favorite quote, that automatically appears after being inserted at the end of an email as a footer. It works as a piece of information that establishes and reinforces your brand identity and who you are as a company or an individual.Email signatures work like a charm when they are set up appropriately. Despite the fact that it is a basic element of an email, it gives the email its character and credibility quotient. To create professional email signatures, one usually adds the following basic information:&nbsp;<ul><li>Name - helps the recipient identify you&nbsp;</li><li>Contact details&nbsp;</li><li>Company name and website&nbsp;</li><li>Email address and links to social media handles</li></ul>

<h1>How Can a Good Email Signature Benefit You?&nbsp;</h1>1. Trust: An email signature is very important for every email campaign because it establishes a level of trust between the sender and the recipient. Apart from that, an email sent with an email signature has more personal touch. It provides information about the sender.2. Professional impression: An elegant design paired with the right messaging leaves behind a professional image.&nbsp;3. Keeping track of your prospects: It becomes easy to understand your prospects. You can track the links your recipients click in your email signature.&nbsp;4. Brand recognition: Identifying your brand becomes easier. Every time buyers look at your signature, they are implicitly registering their perception of the brand you have built for yourself.&nbsp;5. Brand promotion: Adding special offer links to an email signature would assist in promoting a new product or service that is launched.&nbsp;Remember, a professional email signature should be as clear and brief as possible without being overloaded with unnecessary information.

<h1>Creative email signatures types for your inspiration&nbsp;</h1><h2>1) Clickable Email Signature&nbsp;</h2>A clickable signature, as the name implies, contains a clickable link. The link could be a website URL, a phone number, or an embedded YouTube video. What better approach to increase conversions than through email marketing campaigns?Your prospects get the option to interact with you on a variety of channels, increasing the intensity of the engagement.

<h2>2) Social Icon Signature&nbsp;</h2>Using social media signature links, you can direct prospects or recipients to the platforms that showcase your activities and promotional events. Make use of icons rather than hyperlinks.

<h2>3) Video Email Signature&nbsp;</h2>This kind of signature is used by professionals to sell and promote a product or service and is provided by the company.It might be a demo video, a brand promotion video, or a video promoting a special offer. When using video signatures, it's vital to determine what you're trying to achieve before you begin.This email signature helps build a personal relationship with your audience and garner their trust.

<h2>4) Animated GIF Signature&nbsp;</h2>This signature style has the potential to double the number of clicks on the signature. An animated GIF has a tremendous effect on your click-through rate.However, it would be ideal if you remained extremely cautious and concise in your approach. You should choose a GIF that is industry-specific and unique while still conveying a sense of forethought.

<h2>5) A Simple Design&nbsp;</h2>It is a signature with just a few colors. Focus on vital information without adding any unnecessary fluff. As an example, consider:&nbsp;<ul><li>Name&nbsp;</li><li>Job title&nbsp;</li><li>Brand logo with the name&nbsp;</li><li>Contact details with relevant links</li></ul>

<h2>6) Email Signature with Elements that Stand Out</h2>Although this includes the basic information like -<ul><li>Name</li><li>Job title</li><li>Contact information</li><li>Company website and social media links</li></ul>It also consists of some creative elements like -<ul><li>An animated GIF</li><li>Video thumbnail</li><li>A relevant quote</li><li>Zoom button</li><li>Leave a review option</li><li>Hyperlinked image</li></ul>

<h2>7) Minimalist Email Signature&nbsp;</h2>This signature style gives only the most important information about you and your brand, and it provides the audience with clear means of contacting you for your services.Name&nbsp;<ul><li>Designation with picture&nbsp;</li><li>Company name with logo&nbsp;</li><li>Contact information and socials&nbsp;</li><li>Website Information</li></ul>

<h2>8) Personal Email Signature&nbsp;</h2>This signature style, as the name suggests, is PERSONAL. You may customize it according to the message you wish to send via the mail. But be sure to use it for formal communication.&nbsp;<ul><li>Name&nbsp;</li><li>Image&nbsp;</li><li>Job title&nbsp;</li><li>Home or office address&nbsp;</li><li>Phone and telephone number, Email address&nbsp;</li><li>Website&nbsp;</li><li>Social media links and Call to Action (If any)</li></ul>

<h2>9) Banner Email Signature&nbsp;</h2>A Banner is a small responsive image with a message to the readers. Ensure that the banner is clickable, readable, and has a clear call to action.Here is what you can add:&nbsp;<ul><li>Name&nbsp;</li><li>Job title and Company&nbsp;</li><li>Contact details&nbsp;</li><li>Email address and website</li></ul>

<h1>Tips for Writing Killer Email Signatures&nbsp;</h1>While there are several email signature templates to choose from, the most important thing is to select the one that best represents your brand and your product/service in order to build credibility and trust in all your email marketing campaigns.<ul><li>Use every opportunity to express your brand voice, product, or service — or even who you are — to your target audience. Your design, colors, fonts, and all other elements should communicate the company's values and identity.&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Use your signatures as an opportunity to interact with your audience, enhance engagement by including links to your social media profiles, or even encourage them to download a freebie in exchange for their contact information by having your social network profiles.&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>By using Google Maps in your email signature, you and your company could increase your exposure, which is highly beneficial if your company is a restaurant or a local shop.&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>When sending an email, whether it is a daily communication from your personal account or a mass mailing campaign, the way you sign off your email will have an influence on the reader's mind, so make sure it is a genuine and long-lasting one.</li></ul>

<h2>Wrapping up</h2>A good sales rep never leaves what he or she can achieve to chance and although email sgnatures might seem really tiny in the grand scheme of things that a sales process entails, it's important to leverage that tiny piece of real-esate on your email.With <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a> you can harness the power of email signatures as you connect with your prospects on <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">multiple channels</a> including <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multichannel-outreach/email">email</a> to supercharge your sales. The sales engagement platform helps you amplify your sales outreach by sending personalized emails, automating email sequences and get instant engagement insights too. <a href="https://accounts.outplayhq.com/signup">Sign up</a> for a 14-day free trial here and experience the magic yourself?

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All You Need To Know About Email Signatures (+Examples)

Starting a new business takes a lot of hard work. And to make this business successful and profitable, you need to expand your client base. But how will you convince potential clients to choose you over your competitors in the industry?This is where business proposals enter the scene. Creating a business proposal that outlines everything about your business, what it does and how it solves a specific pain point, can help persuade potential clients that yours is the best firm for the job.And who better to do this job than you? As a sales representative, apart from shedding the spotlight on your business, you can use the business proposal to convince potential customers how your product can provide a meaningful solution to their business.Don't know how to get started with the business proposal? In this article, we will discuss how to write an effective business proposal. But first, let’s be clear about what a business proposal is.‍<h1>What is a Business Proposal?</h1> A company or an organization creates a business proposal to present a secure business plan to their potential clients. A legal document, it is given to the prospects with the aim to sell the company's services or product.‍<h1>How to Write a Business Proposal?</h1> Here are a few things that should be covered in every business proposal:<ul><li>Who are you? ‍</li><li>What does your company do? ‍</li><li>What problem is your prospect facing? ‍</li><li>What possible effective solutions can your company offer? ‍</li><li>How will your company implement the solution? ‍</li><li>What resources will you utilize? (Such as money, time, technology, etc.)</li></ul>There is no single definitive way to write all kinds of business proposals. You can create a winning business proposal with proper research, personalization, and customized solutions based on the client's requirements. Let's discuss the essential steps and points every proposal should include:<h1>Let Them Get to Know You</h1> The first few pages of your proposal should introduce your business, leadership team, and its people. Here are a few essential elements that your introduction should have:<ul><li>Title page ‍</li><li>Cover letter ‍</li><li>Table of Contents ‍</li><li>Executive Summary ‍</li><li>Qualifications</li></ul>Let’s explore each of these elements in brief.‍<h2>1. Overview</h2> The overview makes up the first two-three pages of your business proposal. It should reflect professionalism as it will create the first impression. Remember to make it aesthetically appealing. The overview includes the title page and a cover letter.The title page must include the following elements:<ul><li>Your name ‍</li><li>Your company's name ‍</li><li>Date of submission ‍</li><li>Prospect’s name</li></ul>Next comes the cover letter, make sure you draft it carefully as it is the hook of your B2B proposal. It should have:<ul><li>A greeting ‍</li><li>Summary ‍</li><li>Personalized offer ‍</li><li>References</li></ul>Address your prospect while writing the cover letter – this adds a personal touch to the letter.‍<h2>2. Table of Contents</h2> It will help your potential clients know what you have covered in the business proposal. It makes things simple and accessible for them.The decision-makers or people you will be pitching to are senior executives most times. They have busy schedules and can't read your proposal in one go. Having a table of contents makes it easy for them to skim through parts that are more important to them.Also, if you are sending a digital proposal, it is advisable to add a clickable table of contents for easy navigation to different sections.‍<h2>3. Executive Summary</h2> An executive summary states the exact reason for sending the proposal and your best solution. It must include:<ul><li>Introduction of your company ‍</li><li>Overview of your company's goals ‍</li><li>Milestones, vision, plans of your company ‍</li><li>Benefits of your company's products, services, or business ‍</li><li>How can it solve the client's problem? ‍</li><li>How can you help them? ‍</li><li>Add any relevant detail.</li></ul>‍<h2>4. Qualifications</h2> At this point, the client likes your proposal but does not trust you fully. So leverage this section to communicate to them why they should believe in you and your solution. You should portray yourself as their best hope and convince them that you can solve their problems or needs.Highlight what your company is best at and how qualified and hardworking your team is. Also include success stories, past experiences, awards, and accreditation. Add social proof to make them more credible. It will boost your authority.‍<h1>The Problem Section</h1> What: Write about the client’s needs, problems, or pain points for which you are proposing the business deal. &nbsp;How: A well-structured problem statement will allow the client to know that you have fully understood their problem or needs. Here are some things to keep in mind while writing it:<ul><li>Take a holistic approach and research thoroughly before writing the proposal ‍</li><li>Frame it in a way that will set you up with the client ‍</li><li>The problem statement should develop a sense of urgency. ‍</li><li>Also, it should create the impression that you have done your research well and that yours is not a generic pitch. ‍</li><li>You can also create an opportunity to highlight problems that prospective clients might not be aware of.</li></ul>Then write a compelling problem statement that looks like this:‍<h1>Offer a Personalized Solution</h1> What: Offer a well-researched and planned strategy to solve the issue and fulfill your prospect’s needs.How: Write the solution in detail. You can elaborate on it using separate sections. It should be customized as per the client's needs. You can also tell them about the deliverables and methods you will use, along with a timeframe of when they can expect the results. You can make it visually appealing by adding flowcharts, roadmap, or timeline infographics.‍<h1>Begin Wrapping Up</h1><h2> 1. Include a Cost Summary</h2> This section is where you outline your fees, payment mode, schedule, and payment terms. Now, this can be a little tricky to ace. Because on one side you want to crack the deal but on the other side you don’t want to come across as someone who is under or over-price their services.You can provide a few pricing options to the prospective client. Various proposal software available online can help you get a responsive pricing table. It will help potential clients to calculate prices for the products or services they are interested in. Additionally, breaking up the price range is a great way to ensure prospects know what they are paying for.<h2>2. Terms and Conditions</h2> This is where you put a summary of everything your client is agreeing to when accepting the proposal and what you expect from them in return. Make sure it is mentioned clearly and approved by your legal team.It should concisely mention all the project timelines from the beginning of the project to its culmination, pricing, payment mode, and methods. Through this, you will be clear on what is being agreed on.The final step is to include a signature box at the end of the proposal for the client. It is through this that the partnership will become official.<h2>3. Call To Action</h2> Your prospects must know what to do once they are done reading your proposal. Define and highlight your contact information so that they can reach out to you if they have any queries or are interested in doing business with you. Such call-to-actions can <a href="https://review42.com/resources/call-to-action-tips/">boost sales by over 1,500%</a>!‍<h1>Tips for Writing a Winning Proposal</h1> Wondering how you can make the potential client not only set aside time to read the proposal but also accept it? Here are a few tips that can make your business proposal stand out:<h2>Research &amp; Analysis &nbsp;</h2><ul><li>Know your Audience: Get clarity on your prospects' pain points, deadlines, budget, and expectations. Also, it will help you position your proposal correctly and improves your probability of winning the deal. If you understand this, you are already half done. You can reach new prospects with the help of <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a> and engage them on <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">multiple channels</a>. ‍ &nbsp;</li><li>Outline: If you want to propose a thoughtful business proposal, research thoroughly about it. It will help you stay focused and reduce the chances of missing out on any crucial fact. Once done, outline the major sections and write the information you want to include.</li></ul>‍<h2>Graphics &nbsp;</h2><ul><li>Data tables and visuals: Make the proposal attention-grabbing by adding quantitative data. The data should stress the value of your business and highlight the compelling figures to make them more convincing. You can also add charts, diagrams, and graphs to establish authority and capture the client's attention. ‍ &nbsp;</li><li>Multimedia: If you propose an online business proposal over a PDF or document file, you can add multimedia elements to it. They can make it more engaging. You can add a short video in the beginning for your introduction or in between the proposal to discuss complicated parts. It will create a lasting impression on the client's mind about the hard work you are putting into it.</li></ul>‍<h2>Language &nbsp;</h2><ul><li>Remove Jargon: There is no definitive information about how long the proposal should be. It should convey all the information you want to relay but should not be so lengthy that it takes away from the essence- how your business can help ease the client's pain points. Focus on quality, make it straightforward, and avoid too much business jargon. ‍ &nbsp;</li><li>Quality: The proposal should be professional and does not come off as sloppy. Check for grammatical errors before sending them to the client. ‍ &nbsp;</li><li>Urgency: The business proposal should create a sense of urgency to close the deal as soon as possible. Craft a proposal to make it difficult for the client to say no. Give them beyond their expectation, and eliminate frictions and objections that can come along.</li></ul>‍<h2>Branding &nbsp;</h2><ul><li>Focus on Brand: Let your company's or business personality shine through the proposal. It will also set you apart from the competitors and create a brand image in the client's mind. ‍ &nbsp;</li><li>Social Proof: To establish credibility about your quality of work, add social proof to the business proposal. This can be the final nudge to convince potential clients to give you business. New clients are skeptical, and they might not believe in your words. But, they are more likely to trust your business if they see peers and fellow customers trusting you.</li></ul>The executive summary, including the social proof from the clients you have worked with so far, can take you a long way. You can also add testimonials, case studies, and quotes from your existing clients in the qualification seduction of your business proposal.‍<h1>In conclusion</h1> Now that you’ve seen how to write a business proposal, use these tips to write a solid proposal and delight your clients and eventually expand your business. &nbsp;But before you share your business proposal, you can start engaging with your prospects and expanding your customer base using <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a>. A <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">multi-channel sales engagement</a> platform, it helps you prospect on various sales channels. Want to know more? Click here for a <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo">free demo</a> or opt for a <a href="https://accounts.outplayhq.com/signup">14-day free trial</a> to get a hand experience.

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A Definitive Guide on How to Write a Business Proposal

What is that one crucial ingredient that helps you make a sale? Let me answer that for you, it is engagement.Engaging leads throughout the sales process paves way for a successfully closed deal. Every interaction you have with cold prospects and the follow-ups and follow-throughs that happen till they turn into closed-won customers are vital to nurture them. This process is commonly referred to as sales engagement.Sales engagement, however, is not as easy as it sounds as it involves complex buying and selling cycles. And that’s where technology in the form of sales engagement platforms (SEPs) enters. A SEP eases the selling process for your team by bringing the important tools of the sales stack into a single interface. It automates manual time-taking tasks, helps prospect efficiently at scale, and optimizes customer interactions across multiple sales channels.The sales space today is flooded with a huge number of sales engagement tools, each promising the best of features. And when faced with such an overwhelming number of options, a decision is not very easy. But don’t worry, we have you covered. Bringing you some of the popular SEPs, we explain how these can be the right fit for your sales team's prospecting needs. &nbsp;‍<h2>Top 5 Sales Engagement Platforms to Prospect Efficiently</h2><h2>‍1. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a>&nbsp;</h2>Outplay is a new-age sales engagement platform (SEP) that automates all your outreach efforts thereby giving you more meetings, more closed deals, and more revenue. It is designed especially for SMBs focused on personalizing sales engagement at scale and driving higher revenue.The tool comes with an intuitive user interface and best-in-class customer support. Unique features of the tool include multi-channel sales engagement, analytics for predictable revenue growth, and sales automation among others.Unifying various sales channels on a single platform, the tool makes <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">multi-channel engagement</a> effortless. From <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multichannel-outreach/email">email</a>, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multichannel-outreach/dialer">phone</a> and <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multichannel-outreach/sms">SMS</a> to LinkedIn and Twitter, you can engage your prospects wherever they are.

Outplay’s powerful<a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/sales-analytics"> inbuilt analytics tracker </a>helps evaluate which touch patterns are converting to connections and meetings. Analysis derived from this feature enables you to take corrective action where needed and predict future revenue.

The platform also integrates with a host of sales tools such as <a href="https://outplayhq.com/salesforce-integration">Salesforce</a>, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/hubspot-integration">Hubspot</a>, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/gong-integration">Gong</a>, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/pipedrive-integration">Pipedrive</a>, and Gmail to automate all your manual tasks. These include updating data on the CRM, sending trigger notifications for a follow-up, and setting up scheduled series of sales touchpoints such as emails, SMSes, messages, and call reminders. Hence, with Outplay you can stop spending time on non-revenue generating tasks and operate efficiently to perform at your peak.

<h2>2. Mailshake</h2>Mailshake is a sales engagement platform designed explicitly for making cold email outreach seamless. You can thus develop and launch sales and marketing email campaigns at ease.

The tool’s powerful analytics feature helps measure the various email campaigns’ performance and make improvements where deemed necessary. It also enables sending personalized emails, engaging prospects on multiple sales channels, and automatically updating the CRM with a single click.The platform is built to serve sales teams in the SMB (small and medium businesses) market segment. Mailshake boasts native integrations to Pipedrive, Salesforce, Hubspot, and many other 3rd party applications. This makes the lives of salespersons easy by eliminating the need to do tasks manually and giving them some valuable prospecting and nurturing time.<h2>3. Outreach</h2>Outreach is a platform with engagement and automation capabilities that aid your sales teams in closing the sales execution gap and helping them in accelerating their revenue generation.The software unifies three unique solutions into one platform: sales engagement, revenue intelligence, and conversation intelligence. Owing to this your SDRs have access to a range of features that they can leverage to build a more significant pipeline. Some of these include automated data sync, meeting scheduler, AI-driven analytics, and sentiment analysis among others.

Outreach supports more than 90 integrations across ABM, email, CRM, and chat, most of which are native. This ensures users have access to all sales tools in one place.&nbsp;<h2>4. Yesware</h2>Yesware is an email inbox tool that enables sales engagement. As it seamlessly plugs into your inbox, you can use the tool’s features to gather key email metrics and close more deals.

Using the software your sales team can send personalized emails at scale. It helps you meet your revenue goals through its powerful features. These include tracking emails, scheduling meetings, and engaging with prospects via email, phone, and LinkedIn. You no longer have to worry about losing precious time crafting emails that convert, as the tool comes with a library of email templates.Yesware provides users useful email analytics such as email open rates, reply rates, the number of recipients engaged, and meetings booked. This helps you identify winning outreach strategies to convert more prospects. The tool integrates with Salesforce and LinkedIn.&nbsp;<h2>5. Salesloft</h2>Salesloft is a B2B sales engagement software built to help sales teams drive more revenue and conversations. With conversation intelligence as part of the platform, sales reps get AI-based analysis of their sales conversations.Salesloft has named its outreach platform Modern Revenue Workspace™. This tool is ideal for sales leaders, managers, AEs, sales ops, customer success teams, marketing leaders, and SDRs operating in SMBs and enterprises. It is an all-in-one solution that makes digital selling simpler by generating your sales pipeline data, automating sales cadences, and equipping you with useful insights.

The software integrates with various tools such as Salesforce, Gmail, Orum and Lusha among many others providing a deeper level of personalization features to all its users.&nbsp;<h2>Parting thoughts</h2>There you have it - 5 Sales Engagement Platforms to help your sales teams prospect efficiently and effectively to close more deals. You can evaluate the features and compare the tools to choose the one that best suits your needs. And, if you find Outplay to be THE tool, you can learn more about it <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features">here</a>. You can even <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo">book a demo</a> with one of our executives or enjoy a <a href="https://accounts.outplayhq.com/signup">14-day free trial</a> to get first-hand experience.

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Top 5 Sales Engagement Platforms To Prospect Efficiently

Let us start by asking a quirky question. Can you summarize the life of a salesperson? Well, let us give it a shot. Wakes up early. Hits snooze-not. Checks emails. Inculcates that sales mindset, quick breakfast, and on the drive to the office. Is it enough? Not really. Action on. Selling on!Wait, one cannot skip those team meetings, endless phone calls, new clients, rejections, and closed deals. Yes, this is the typical life of a salesperson.You can probably picture how chaotic a salesperson’s daily life is, and with so much on their plate, being unorganized can hamper productivity and success. In such cases, the most pivotal and easiest to manage KRA is organizing the Gmail inbox. This can help boost productivity and efficiency in sales.However, many salespeople are unable to manage Gmail, and as a result, the burden of an unorganized inbox keeps adding to the everyday toil. Hence, it is crucial to know how to create folders in Gmail. If you master this art of organizing Gmail folders, you will be unstoppable in your quest for success.<h1>&nbsp;</h1><h1>Gmail Folders vs. Label</h1>Did you know that one of the most asked questions on Quora is how to create folders in Gmail and how to organize Gmail folders? Yes, you read it right. But here is the twist - There’s no "folder" creation option because Gmail doesn’t have folders. Yes, it's all about labels, which in essence, is exactly the same thing. Basically, Gmail doesn't have a folder system like Microsoft Outlook. Instead, it has labels. Labels, like folders, in other emails, make your messages more manageable and easy to locate.So how are labels different from folders? If you see the typical system setup, there is a folder that is assigned to each email. But, in Gmail, you can add multiple labels to your email. Let us understand with the help of the example.Example - In Gmail, you assign names to the labels like - Work plans, Home plans, and Personal expense plans without creating a copy of it for each label.As mentioned above, the Gmail label and Gmail folder are essentially the same. We will be using “labels” and “folders” interchangeably moving further.<h1>&nbsp;</h1><h1>How to Create Labels Step By Step</h1>Now that you know there is no difference between folders and labels, let's try to understand how to create labels in Gmail and its benefits for a salesperson. Once you know how to create labels, you will see a significant difference in your productivity for sure.Follow these simple and easy steps to create labels -<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Step 1: Go to Gmail Settings:</h2>Login to your Gmail account on your desktop, click on the setting and press the cog in the top right-hand side corner.‍ <img class="image_resized" style="width:75%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step1_db1b103b96.jpg" alt="step1.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step1_db1b103b96.jpg 208w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_step1_db1b103b96.jpg 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_step1_db1b103b96.jpg 750w," sizes="100vw"><h2> &nbsp;</h2><h2>Step 2: Click the “Labels” option</h2>Remember, we just told you that Gmail loves it when you call folders, labels? Against this backdrop, click on "Labels," below the “Settings'' field.<img class="image_resized" style="width:75%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step2_e514d9fea0.jpg" alt="step2.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step2_e514d9fea0.jpg 178w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_step2_e514d9fea0.jpg 500w," sizes="100vw">&nbsp;<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Step 3: Find “Create label”</h2>Identify the create label option by scrolling downwards. You will find it in the left-hand side corner of the screen.<h2><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step3_b96ee1bd56.jpg" alt="step3.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step3_b96ee1bd56.jpg 245w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_step3_b96ee1bd56.jpg 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_step3_b96ee1bd56.jpg 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_step3_b96ee1bd56.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">‍ &nbsp;</h2><h2>Step 4: Name your label with a title:</h2>Once you find the create label option, click on it. When you do, a pop will appear where you can give the label a title of your choice. Also, you will find “nest labels'' options here.Nest labels are basically used to create subfolders within folders. In case you want to add a subfolder, use the drop-down menu to pick where you want the new label to be visible.‍ <img class="image_resized" style="width:75%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step4_f1fc72dc8a.jpg" alt="step4.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step4_f1fc72dc8a.jpg 245w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_step4_f1fc72dc8a.jpg 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_step4_f1fc72dc8a.jpg 750w," sizes="100vw"><h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>Step 5: The New Folder(Label) is ready to use</h2>You are almost done! Once you name the label, just refresh your Gmail tab, and you will see a new folder in the left-hand panel of your inbox under drafts. Yes, now you can use it.‍ <img class="image_resized" style="width:25%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step5_4a9d6828e9.jpg" alt="step5.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step5_4a9d6828e9.jpg 126w," sizes="100vw">&nbsp;<h2>Step 6: Time to fill in the folder with data</h2>After this, all you need to do is move the email to this folder in the organized form. To do this in the easiest and quickest way is to drag and drop the email from your inbox to the newly created labels. Once you have sorted the content, you are good to go.It’s easy, isn’t it? Since you now know how to create Gmail labels cum folders, let us take you through some amazing hacks and tips to master the art of using Gmail labels like a pro. &nbsp;<h1>How to Assign Labels to an Email Automatically on the Gmail Mobile App</h1>Most of us use a mobile phone to check emails in the morning, or when we need to revert to something quickly and we are not around our desktop.As per <a href="https://www.superoffice.com/blog/email-open-rates/">Superoffice</a>, email open rates are much higher on mobile devices. The email open rates on mobile phones have grown by more than 100% since 2011 and are increasing every year. In current times, 81% of all emails are opened and read on mobile devices today.Before we start, please note you can only assign labels on iOS devices and transfer the incoming emails to the folder automatically. However, this feature is not available in Gmail’s Android mobile app. &nbsp;<h1>Let’s learn how to set up Gmail folders on iOS mobile devices -</h1>&nbsp;Step 1: Go to your Gmail app, and click on the menu option. <img class="image_resized" style="width:25%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step01_4f259e1b9b.jpg" alt="step01.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step01_4f259e1b9b.jpg 88w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_step01_4f259e1b9b.jpg 283w," sizes="100vw">‍&nbsp;Step 2: Once the menu opens, go to settings.‍<img class="image_resized" style="width:25%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step02_5c7147312e.jpg" alt="step02.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step02_5c7147312e.jpg 79w," sizes="100vw">&nbsp;Step 3: Select your Gmail account, and a list of options will appear in the settings menu. Click on label settings.<img class="image_resized" style="width:25%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step03_7238cb8216.jpg" alt="step03.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step03_7238cb8216.jpg 82w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_step03_7238cb8216.jpg 264w," sizes="100vw">‍ &nbsp;Step 4: Once you click on the label settings, you will see a list of labels. Choose the label name of the respective folder. From the following label menu, click on Add.<img class="image_resized" style="width:25%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step04_9e14d3b32f.jpg" alt="step04.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step04_9e14d3b32f.jpg 163w," sizes="100vw">‍ &nbsp;Step 5: Now type the email id with other search parameters, if any, and click on the add button and click save. By doing this, specific emails will automatically go into the folder.But just remember that you cannot edit or rename this folder and create any custom folder if you want in the future via mobile. You need to have a desktop to do this.<img class="image_resized" style="width:75%;" src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step05_b11c539199.jpg" alt="step05.jpg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step05_b11c539199.jpg 245w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_step05_b11c539199.jpg 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_step05_b11c539199.jpg 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_step05_b11c539199.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">‍<h1>&nbsp;</h1><h1>Some Life Saving Hacks for your Gmail Folders</h1>‍Hack 1 - Automatically Label an Email Based on Search CriteriaLet’s start with this. &nbsp;If you are one of those people who want to know how to create Gmail folders but don't have enough mojo to drag the email into the respective folder each time, this hack is for you. Follow these two simple steps-Step 1- Here, you need to click on the Gmail search bar and create automatic labels based on criteria.Step 2 - After setting the criteria, click "Create filter" with this search, which is on the bottom right corner. Then, apply the label by clicking the Choose label drop-down.‍<img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/step001_5a30e5ff60.png" alt="step001.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_step001_5a30e5ff60.png 245w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_step001_5a30e5ff60.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_step001_5a30e5ff60.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_step001_5a30e5ff60.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"> ‍ Hack 2 - Manage Your Gmail Labels With EaseAfter you are done creating labels, you also need to learn how to tweak them. Here we go. Whenever you need to rename a label, hide the one that you don't want to delete, you will find this option available within the “Labels tab” of “Settings.”You can easily find rename by clicking on more options and then on the manage labels menu. &nbsp;On the screen, you will see the show or hide option in the label list.‍Hack 3- Add a Label to a Message You’re SendingYou are about to send a mail and want it to go automatically into the folder. Is this even possible? Yes, you simply have to follow these easy steps-<ol style="list-style-type:decimal;"><li>Go to compose.</li><li>Tap More options, you will find this in the bottom right corner.</li><li>Click Label.</li><li>Select a label that you want to add.</li></ol><img class="image_resized" style="width:391px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/626f8028dc441cefbe46799f_qywrmr534euXN58AxMDsg89RGzITMpFHySEXAEb7TWm9IK8ZUXj9kXb3bJM9hwU481v331rXNUaQgUy-_EUxlQ_o0DonZb2SczozhtGeWWL2NSBVzGy1vV-Ly_xjy6osUvCXEe3U.png" alt="">Last but not least, a bonus hack - 5 Folder Ideas to Keep your Inbox Organized and Well-managedAs a sales rep, your email etiquette speaks a lot about you and about your growth trajectory. Maybe you have zero unread emails in your inbox, or you keep your inbox piled up with emails. In both conditions, you need to keep your email well managed and organized.‍Here's a rundown of the list of 5 folders that you can use to ease out the whole process in one go.1- Inbox - Keep your inbox clean and free from emails that don't require any attention. Only those emails should be there that are of utmost importance.2. Today - This requires immediate attention and is time-sensitive. So keep those emails that should be given due importance at the earliest.3. This week - Here, you can keep emails that need to be reverted within the week and have far sufficient turnaround time.5- Information FYI - You can keep those emails that you need for reference or informational purposes only. Here, reverting or responding is not required.<h1>&nbsp;</h1><h1>Final Words</h1>Organizing Gmail folders is important, especially for a salesperson. Managing your mailbox can be a tough nut to crack with a plethora of emails overflowing every day. With Gmail labels, you can create, delete, rename, assign colors to your folders, and make your mailbox organized. &nbsp;Now that you know how to organize your Gmail like never before; make your sales smarter through <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features">Outplay’s</a> multi-channel outreach and better sales insights to boost sales productivity. Set up a personalized sales sequence and reach out to your prospects via Gmail in an effective and timely manner.

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Tips on How to Create Folders in Gmail to Streamline Your Inbox

Have you ever wondered what sets apart an overachieving Account Executive (AE) from an average Joe? Why do they struggle to perform at their peak in spite of hitting their quota to a large extent?Well, it has less to do with the AE’s skills and abilities to make a sale and more to do with their inability to engage prospects beyond the usual follow-ups. The <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/sales-engagement-the-definitive-guide-for-platform-selection">2017 TOPO (now Gartner) Sales Development Technology Benchmark Report</a>, highlights how sales engagement is overwhelmingly named by 90% of sales leaders as their top priority.It is thus a no-brainer why sales leaders across the globe invest in sales engagement tools and methodologies. They see it as the only answer to convert cold prospects into Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), that turn into Sales Accepted Leads (SALs) and eventually transform into Closed-Won customers.From enterprises to mid-market to small and midsize businesses (SMBs), organizations of all shapes and sizes have now realized how crucial it is to leverage sales engagement. It is an operating philosophy that not only results in an increased customer base but also helps:<ul><li>Align both marketing and sales teams ‍</li><li>Improve the transparency of interlinked processes ‍</li><li>Drive predictability like never before &nbsp;</li></ul>Sales engagement, in its true essence, is not a sprint but a marathon. And growing businesses are willing to partake in it to sustain outcomes in the ever-evolving business climate with varying buyer expectations.<h1> So, what on earth is Sales Engagement?</h1>Simply put, sales engagement refers to the amalgamation of all activities that take place between the prospect and the seller throughout the sales cycle. Historically these activities are measured as time vs multiple touchpoints such as emails, calls, demos, product evaluation, contracting, and finally having the customer on board.

As evident from the above chart, the number of touchpoints increases with time, until the final stage of closed-won or closed-lost is reached. An average sales cycle typically lasts anywhere between 4-6 months and the time and touchpoints only keep going up based on the product/industry/buyer and ticket size.With AEs investing so much time in chasing their prospects across multiple touchpoints, it is only imperative for them to use the right sales engagement approach to increase their win rate and consistently overachieve. Failure to do so can leave them looking at the whole process as an uphill battle as they relentlessly chase their next big customer. And the proof is in the pudding with Gallup's <a href="https://www.gallup.com/services/176282/state-american-consumer.aspx">State of the American Consumer Report</a>. It states that companies that successfully engage customers perform 23% better than their competitors, report 63% lower customer attrition, and achieve 55% higher wallet share.Has all this got you thinking about how you should leverage engagement in the right way, to boost sales at your organization? Well, worry not, we've got you covered. Filtering the crux from the noise, here are 6 ways in which sales engagement improves sales.Leverages sales enablement initiatives<ul><li>Invest in sales coaching/ training</li><li>Craft the right content that they can use to entice buyers</li><li>Inculcate best practices</li><li>Invest in various tools</li><li>Provide salespeople with all the resources they need to engage their target buyers</li></ul><h1>1. Leverages Sales Enablement Initiatives</h1>Sales Enablement is another buzzword doing circles and it’s often misconstrued to be sales engagement. But there’s more than just a strikingly stark difference between the two.<ul><li>Sales enablement refers to the gamut of initiatives that empower reps to do more and be more.</li><li>Sales engagement on the other hand, focuses on the various touchpoints that the prospect and the AE go through during the sales process.</li></ul>In the grand scheme of things, it can be said that sales engagement is a subset of sales enablement and the right way to nail engagement is to start with its enablement.Without an intent to invest in sales enablement holistically, sales engagement can turn out to be half-baked and not generate the desired impact and results. Hence, it is important for businesses to prioritize AEs’ overall enablement including but not limited to the following initiatives:<ul><li>Invest in sales coaching/ training</li><li>Craft the right content that they can use to entice buyers</li><li>Inculcate best practices</li><li>Invest in various tools</li><li>Provide salespeople with all the resources they need to engage their target buyers</li></ul>

As shown above, sales engagement forms the centerpiece of various enablement initiatives and leverages them to drive high-quality engagement. Whether it is showing the right content or delivering a great pitch or shooting the right email at the right time, sales engagement empowers reps to outplay consistently.<h1>2. Personalizes the Buyer’s Journey&nbsp;</h1>No two buyers are made alike (even if they are Siamese twins!) and hence a one-size-fits-all approach to engaging prospects doesn’t work anymore. Gone are the days when email used to be the only tool available to engage prospects outside face-to-face (F2F) meetings.The average consumer today is spread across at least 3 or more communication channels such as email, LinkedIn, call, and messaging apps among others. Thus, sticking to just one or a finite few channels invariably leaves you behind in the race.Embracing technology through a sales engagement platform (SEP) such as <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a> alleviates the AEs’ burden of investing time and effort across all channels individually. AEs and SDRs don’t have to go through the pain of jumping from one system to another in order to engage prospects.They have the advantage of not just automating multiple transactions like emails, messages, etc., across channels but also tailoring custom engagement strategies and prospects across industries. Hyper personalization is very much possible with a robust SEP and such an approach ensures buyers see, hear, and feel what they need to in order to make an informed purchasing decision.

<h1>As seen from Aragon Research’s diagram above, a SEP integrates with various other tools and communication channels that are a part of the marketing and sales stack in order to unify all touchpoints and become the one-stop shop for all things engagement. With so much data being fed into a SEP, sales leaders also have the unfair advantage of deriving custom analytics that can help in decision making and promote guided selling backed by data and insights. &nbsp; 3. Drives brand recall, signups, and referrals</h1>‘Out of sight = Out of mind’ and nothing is more damaging than a poor or non-existent sales engagement strategy. This is more true in these trying Covid times where the world is living remotely and getting the mind-share of your ideal buyer has become more challenging than ever before. Your offering could cater to a particular niche or be mainstream with cut-throat competition. Whichever the type, the buyers today are bombarded with a lot of promotions to a point where it almost knocks them out into a frenzy of decision paralysis.In a world filled with so much noise, the right engagement strategy helps build authenticity and most importantly drives brand recall, inbound signups, and even referrals. Thus helping the prospect differentiate you from the rest of the competition.It is important to note that sales engagement does not end with a Closed-Won or Closed-Lost sales stage but is rather perennial in nature. As a result, even a lost customer if engaged well can always circle back at the right time of need or refer potential buyers from his network.Brand recall is not easy and it cannot be built in a day, month, or even a year. The most popular brands in the world spend consistent time, effort, and money in driving their message right by always engaging customers. The right kind of engagement implemented consistently over a long enough timeline eventually becomes a superpower. It has the ability to generate a pull effect and have the market gravitate towards your brand.<h1>4. Makes time for AEs to ABC</h1>

Remember Alec Baldwin from "Glengarry Glen Ross”? This infamous adaptation of the Pulitzer prize-winning play took the world of sales by storm and emphasized the single most important thing sales representatives need to care about: “Always Be Closing”. While the world has come a long way from the aggressive ABC approach the movie preaches, it can be a really good aspiration for AEs to outplay their targets.A <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/always-be-closing.asp">2018 study by CSO Insights,</a> indicated that successful salespeople spent, at most, 35% of their time actually selling or "closing" deals. So the real question is where is the rest of 65% of an AE’s time going? ﻿The research found that lead generation, customer follow-up, strategy and planning, and other administrative tasks comprised the lion's share of their time. &nbsp;While sales engagement cannot really replace all the tasks, some of the most repetitive and impactful tasks such as follow-ups over email or WhatsApp, sharing the latest case study, and inviting prospects to an upcoming webinar can be seamlessly automated by a Sales Engagement Platform (SEP). With a SEP the time spent in chasing buyers across channels can be invested in selling or prospecting which is a direct contributor to revenue.<h2>5. Predicts Revenue</h2>Popular management guru Peter Drucker once said, “What gets measured, gets managed.” A very prominent metric that almost all AEs and sales teams tend to overlook is the level of engagement their prospect is exhibiting. &nbsp;It’s a no-brainer that an engaged prospect has a very high probability of buying as opposed to a disengaged prospect. Tracking key metrics such as response rate, open rate, no of meetings, no. of touchpoints, signups and events attended among others leads you to arrive at a holistic engagement score. This in turn acts as a lead indicator of revenue.Sales leaders who spend time reviewing pipelines every week can get their predictability game right by factoring a certain weightage to deals that exhibit a high engagement level. This ensures the high accuracy of revenue prediction and also helps employ corrective measures before it’s too late. Measuring predictability solely based on AE’s inputs and deal movement across stages without factoring in engagement is a rudimentary approach that can never evolve beyond a point.<h1> 6. Aligns Sales and Marketing Teams</h1>Marketing teams owing to their own evolution, often end up working in silos, forming notions of the ideal buyer that may not entirely be true. This could lead to them totally discounting the AE’s view of the ideal buyer. On the flip side, most times sales teams don’t find marketing initiatives aligned to their revenue goals, and should a bad year happen, you’d find both of them at each other’s necks!

While there are umpteen ways and reasons to align both teams, having sales engagement goals will invariably bring them together. The alignment can only be successfully orchestrated when both teams are aligned on a common vision. All marketing initiatives can be an outcome of the sales team’s feedback which in turn is a function of what the ideal buyer needs. &nbsp;The three gears as indicated in the above diagram, when working together in total alignment increase sales for the organization and help scale the business.<h1> Final Thoughts</h1>Closing a deal, making a sale, and boosting revenue is as important for a small business as it is for a big conglomerate. In this ever-evolving world, the competition is only getting tough, and successfully leveraging sales engagement is the only way to improve your sales.Now that you know the best practices to boost your sales, how about automating the process to empower your AEs? Yes, I am talking about using a Sales Engagement Platform. Find out more about SEPs <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/sales-engagement-platform-strategy-benefits/">here</a> and if you are looking for a hands-on experience in using one, then what better than a short demo of Outplay? <a href="https://calendly.com/d/dtcb-t4r7/outplay-meeting?month=2021-12">Click here</a> to experience our powerful tool.

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6 Ways to Leverage Sales Engagement to the Fullest

Ideally, sales prospects should convert into customers. But in the real world, sales objections are more common than you think.Are you trying to funnel sales leads through the pipeline and turn them into closed customers?Then, you must know how to convert a ‘no’ into ‘yes’ and handle objections well. The idea is to resolve the objections fruitfully to operate your business successfully‍.<h2>&nbsp;</h2><h2>&nbsp;</h2>

<h2>Sales objections in B2B sales</h2>So, what is a sales objection?It is typically a concern raised by a prospect that becomes a roadblock in the sales interaction and obstructs the sales process. These objections could be anything from budget constraints to lack of inclination towards the product, or wrong timing.Here are some of the common sales objections every B2B sales rep hears at some point during the selling process:<ul><li>We are happy with our current product.</li><li>The price for this is out of our budget/ too high.</li><li>Please share the information, and I will get back to you.</li><li>Unfortunately, this is not a priority for our business currently.</li><li>This product is the same as others we have seen in the market.</li></ul>Most salespersons fail to learn how to react to and deal with such objections. But to become successful you should be prepared to handle any concerns that could arise in your prospects’ minds about the product or service.The next step then is to respond to the concerns in such a way that the sales interaction moves along the funnel. In other words, handling a sales objection involves changing the buyer’s mind without letting any objections get in the way.<h1>Handling sales objections like a pro</h1>When faced with an objection it is natural to get impulsive but, that’s exactly what you should avoid. Here are some strategies that will help you respond appropriately and give you a better chance to speak to and convert prospects.<h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>1. Listen to their concerns</h3>When running a business, you are looking at closing sales deals. You are not there simply to hear the buyers rant about their issues unless you can solve them.When a buyer is spelling out his concerns, carefully listen to them so that you can anticipate and analyze what objections may arise later. This approach will help you pre-empt specific misgivings he may have and give him the confidence that your business is the right fit for his business needs.Paying attention and listening to buyers' concerns, will assure them that your business is actually there to help. This aspect will increase your chances of closing a deal with the buyer.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>2. Understand their issues</h3>While this sounds easy, it may not be. Listening to the buyer’s concerns is one thing; understanding them is an art.While listening to the buyer’s concerns, extract the information necessary for you to interpret in a way that you can address their needs. Instead of cutting off the buyer mid-sentence, you can even paraphrase what they say. This approach will enable you to confirm that you and the buyer are both on the same page.For example, after listening to the buyer’s concerns regarding the pricing structure, you could repeat, “Just so we are clear, you find the onboarding cost to be a bit high. Is that correct?”This will show the buyers you understand them and thus increase trust between the parties.&nbsp;<h3>3. Respond to the specific concerns bothering them</h3>Not all the issues laid down by the prospects may be concerning. &nbsp;But the point is to address the worries that could become roadblocks to closing the deal. Acknowledge each of their concerns to give them the confidence that you understand what they are looking for. Assure them you can assist them in solving their major worries.It will help them know that you are taking their concerns seriously and bring you a step closer to closing the deal.<h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>4. Confirm how your business can handle the prospects’ issues</h3>Similar to the previous point, confirming the concerns helps you lock in the buyer’s perspective. At this stage, you need to give the buyer the confidence that you will be able to overcome their objections and confirm that they are planning to move ahead with the deal. &nbsp;Quick Tip: Be attentive to the buyer’s concerns; ask them questions to go in-depth into the issue they are facing, and suspend any judgment when addressing their concerns. You may request clarifications as and when they may be necessary and be conscious of their requirements.&nbsp;<h1>Common sales objections and how to overcome them</h1>Here are the common types of objections in a sales interaction. The section also includes tips on objection handling in sales.&nbsp;1. Your product/ service is out of our budgetPrice objections are difficult to handle. You need to justify why your product or service has a specific price to the other party. &nbsp;How to handle: Try to unearth the entire concern of the buyer: why are they conscious about the price point?Have they had a bad experience with a similar business in the past and, therefore, have trust issues? &nbsp;Or, do they not have enough knowledge about industry standards to understand how your product is valued?When it comes to price, just be reassuring and focus on the USP your business has to offer. &nbsp;‍&nbsp;2. We are presently engaged with a different vendorIf your prospect has contractual engagement with a different third party, you can handle it by understanding if they are facing any specific concerns.Handling this sales objection: Understand what is going on in your prospect’s mind.Ask if they have a long-standing relationship with a different vendor. Understand how the experience has been so far and if you can do something differently so that they can reap better results.‍&nbsp;3. It is not a good time for us right nowBusinesses generally are busy and lack time to deal with new vendors.How to overcome this sales objection: Find out if the prospect is brushing you off or genuinely lacks time. Find an opening to reach out to them later, in a specific way.For example, you may ask the prospect, “How does a quick 15 minutes video call on Thursday sound?”‍&nbsp;4. How did you find out about our business? &nbsp;Some businesses, especially small ones or those that have recently started, are conscious of their market presence. They might question salespeople about where they may have heard about their brand name and why the sales business is approaching them.Objection handling for this sale: Handle this situation kindly, based on your assumption of the individual’s temperament at the other end.Are they generally curious, or are they taken aback?Remain calm when speaking to the prospect; get them on an equal footing by being honest and telling them why your business looked for theirs.&nbsp;<h2>Other types of sales objections and techniques to handle them:</h2>&nbsp;5. Please send me the information, and I’ll get back to youCheck your marketing to make sure your leads are qualified.‍6. Please allow me some time to run this by the management/my bossThe prospect probably doesn’t have the authority to sign off on the sales deal.Try to understand who you can speak to for getting the deal closer to the bottom of the sales funnel.‍7. We need to get some more quotes from the market and get backUse a script when dealing with such standard questions - buyers/prospects typically use such statements to deter the sales process and brush it off.If the prospect is genuinely looking around the market, don’t push them; you may tick them off by incessant pushiness.‍8. A similar product is cheaperUnderstand the other product the prospect is talking about, and try to find out why it is cheaper.Then explain where your product or service justifies its value.‍9. What about X features?Businesses these days offer a high level of customization when it comes to selling products and services.Your prospect would likely have heard about specific features or customizations that other businesses are willing to offer.Try to understand their concerns and see if you can provide the same/ more - or address why the same isn’t possible. &nbsp;‍10. We heard about some negative reviews about your businessInstead of avoiding the issue, ask your prospect what the review was about and where they heard it.Let them know how you have worked around the issue or why the particular client faced the same, without defaming them. It will help address questions and fears.‍11. We need to use budgets elsewhere/we presently don’t have a budget for thisNormally, a business will try to earmark money for a different requirement.However, tell your prospect how your business can help them and why they should allocate you that specific budget. &nbsp;‍12. We are in the process of downsizingThank the prospect for speaking to you and wrap up the entire deal. There is not much that you can do in this situation.Instead of pushing them, try to find out who else you can speak to.‍13. We have not heard about your companyGive your prospect enough information to help build trust with your company.Share information that addresses specific concerns or requirements.‍14. We are already doing well in this area/taking care of it in-houseSuppose the prospect objects and states that the reason for which you are reaching out is being taken care of in-house.Don’t give up yet. Tell them how you can be different and help them achieve results in a more cost-efficient manner.‍15. We do not want to address these problems right nowAsk the prospect to elaborate on their priorities and their business’s focus.It will give you more insight into what they are looking for and give you an opening to discuss any concerns that you may be able to address. &nbsp;‍16. We are not sure how your product can help usThis point is where you step in to provide reassurance to convert the prospect to a buyer.Talk to them about the challenges their business is going through and how you can address them. &nbsp;‍17. We do not have the internal capacity to implement this productTell your prospect you understand their concern, and then crisply tell them how you can help them implement it in a resource-efficient way.‍18. This product/ service is complicatedAsk the prospect what part of the business is confusing and specifically address the same.Talk to them about your business in a result-oriented way. Use numbers, if possible.‍19. You do not understand our business.Instead of incorrectly assuming your client’s needs, talk to them.Employ the listen, understand, respond, and confirm techniques.‍20. We are happy with the way we are running our businessWhile the buyer’s business may be going well, there is always room for improvement.Prove to them how you can make changes in a cost-effective manner and add to organizational results.‍21. We do not understand your productAsk the prospect what part of the business is confusing and specifically address the same.Talk to them about your business in a result-oriented way. Use positive statistics. Parting thoughtsHandling objections can be frustrating, but it is a very common aspect of sales. The idea is to thoroughly understand the prospect’s woes and interact with them appropriately.Now that you are all set to handle any objections that come your way, why don't you put it to practice with <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a>? Wondering how? With our <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">multi-channel outreach</a> feature reach out to prospects on different sales channels and ace all kinds of objections. Request a demo <a href="https://outplayhq.com/request-a-demo">here</a> and let one of our reps walk you through the platform.

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21 Sales objections and how to handle them like a pro

<h1>Table of Content</h1><ul><li><a href="#sales-one">Sales quotes to keep you going</a></li><li><a href="#sales-two">Sales quotes to drive you to build the pipe</a></li><li><a href="#sales-three">Sales quotes to help you close deals</a></li><li><a href="#sales-four">Motivational Sales Quotes from Movies</a></li><li><a href="#conclusion">Conclusion</a></li></ul>‍17 calls, 11 emails, 15 SMSes, and numerous follow-ups later, your sales rep is still not done working. The story continues with umpteen number of proposals, multiple negotiations, and lots of back and forth of contracting before a deal is finally closed.As evident, sales is not for everyone. The most successful sales reps are the ones doing all the above activities persistently and finding other creative ways to meet their targets. In short, success in sales is a function of perseverance, patience, and motivation.But even the most self-motivated salespeople sometimes need a push. Because life is not all sunshine and rainbows, and whether we like it or not there will always be gloomy days. For all those high-performing sales reps, here are some really powerful quotes that can raise your spirit and inspire you to do more and be more.&nbsp;Here goes:

<h1>Sales quotes to keep you going</h1><ol><li>“Either you run the day or the day runs you.” - Jim Rohn</li><li>“Accountability breeds responsibility.“ – Stephen Covey</li><li>“You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction.” - George Lorimer</li><li>“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.” - Dalai Lama</li><li>"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas Edison</li><li>Motivation will almost always beat mere talent." - Norman Ralph Augustine</li><li>"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible." - Tony Robbins</li><li>“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” - Henry Ford</li><li>"I got lucky because I never gave up the search. Are you quitting too soon? Or are you willing to pursue luck with a vengeance?" ― Jill Konrath</li><li>‘The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.’ - Michelangelo</li></ol>

<h1>Sales quotes to drive you to build the pipe</h1><ol style="list-style-type:decimal;"><li>“The key is not to call the decision-maker. The key is to have the decision maker call you.” – <a href="https://www.gitomer.com/">Jeffrey Gitomer</a></li><li>"It's not what you sell. It's how you sell it." – <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dharmesh">Dharmesh Shah</a></li><li>“Honest &amp; transparent content is the best sales tool...in the world. Period.” - <a href="https://marcussheridan.com/">Marcus Sheridan</a></li><li>"Buyers don’t believe anything you have to say to them about your product or service until they first believe in you.” –<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/debcalvertpeoplefirst"> Deb Calvert</a></li><li>“Care enough to create value for customers. If you get that part right, selling is easy.” – <a href="https://www.thesalesblog.com/">Anthony Iannarino</a></li><li>“Prospects are making their purchase decision based on whether they think you understand their problems and you have the knowledge, resources, and commitment to solving them.” – <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/trishbertuzzi">Trish Bertuzzi</a></li><li>“My goal is not to get you to buy what I’m selling, but rather my goal is to get you to invest in the outcome you will receive when you buy from me.” - <a href="https://thesaleshunter.com/">Mark Hunter</a></li><li>“If you want to be really productive, give yourself a quota. Meet at least three new people every day, and get their contact info.” - <a href="https://ryanserhant.com/">Ryan Serhant</a>&nbsp;</li></ol>SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/5-simple-tactics-for-sdrs-to-get-more-meetings-booked/">5 SIMPLE TACTICS FOR SDRS TO GET MORE MEETINGS BOOKED</a>

<h1>Sales quotes to drive you to build the pipe</h1><ol style="list-style-type:decimal;"><li>Life is a series of sales situations, and the answer is no if you don't ask. - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/executivespeechcoach">Patricia Fripp</a></li><li>“Filter everything you’re doing, saying and pitching and you’ll improve just about every metric you care about today.” – <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattheinz">Matt Heinz</a></li><li>“The way you position yourself at the beginning of a relationship has a profound impact on where you end up.” – <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronkarr/">Ron Karr</a></li><li>“The No. 1 key to success in today’s sales environment is speed. The salesperson who delivers the most valuable information to their customer or prospect first, wins the game.” – <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveorrico">Dave Orrico</a></li><li>“Always be closing… That doesn’t mean you’re always closing the deal, but it does mean you need to be always closing on the next step in the process.” – <a href="https://ca.linkedin.com/in/shanegibson">Shane Gibson</a></li><li>“I like to think of sales as the ability to gracefully persuade, not manipulate, a person or persons into a win-win situation.” – <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertsbennett/">Bo Bennett</a></li><li>‘The biggest risk is not taking any risk…in a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.’ - <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck">Mark Zuckerberg</a>&nbsp;</li></ol>SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/12-skills-every-sdr-needs-to-crush-their-quotas/">12 SKILLS EVERY SDR NEEDS TO CONSISTENTLY CRUSH THEIR QUOTAS</a>

<h1>Motivational Sales Quotes from Movies</h1><ol style="list-style-type:decimal;"><li>“Don’t ever let someone tell you, you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period. All right?” – Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness</li><li>“There is no such thing as a no sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can’t. Either way a sale is made, the only question is who is gonna close? You or him? Now be relentless, that’s it, I’m done.” – Jim Young, Boiler Room</li><li>“Success is a menace. It fools smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates, Pirates of Silicon Valley</li><li>“Do or do not. There is no ‘try’.” – Yoda, Star Wars</li><li>“Think big, think positive, never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throat. Buy low, sell high.” - &nbsp;Louis Winthorp III, Trading Places</li><li>"You're a shark. Sharks are winners, and they don't look back because they have no necks. Necks are for sheep." - Steve Castle, Futurama</li></ol>

<h1>Conclusion</h1>Salespeople need the occasional push during dark and dingy times. When the target weighs hefty on your shoulders and the next biggest customer seems out of reach, remember who you are and what you are capable of. Most importantly stay positive pondering over the above sales quotes we put together for you. &nbsp;Now that you're all pumped up, read this <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">ebook</a> on 30 sales sequences that high-performing sales teams use and get closing.

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31 Motivational sales quotes to pump your team

Do you find yourself constantly trying to catch a user’s attention with follow-up emails? Do you find yourself using common phrases like ‘just checking in’, but do not seem to get any response?In a world where digital communication is rampant, it becomes crucial to stand out if you want to get noticed.Following up is crucial, especially when it comes to converting leads through conversions. Email follow-ups help maintain relations with (potential) customers and are even more pivotal when it comes to closing deals. However, reaching out un-impactfully can be an extremely ineffective way of following up. It can make the recipients uninterested and even put them off.&nbsp;<h1>What are follow-up emails?</h1>Most marketers forget that follow-up emails are different from cold emails - there’s a specific purpose to sending them, and the goal is to ensure the customer receives the message you’re sending across. Follow-up emails are the second or third line of communication sent to recipients that have previously contacted you. Some common reasons to send a follow-up include:* requesting the recipient for some information* garnering a response* getting the recipient to take a specific action such as browsing your products and making a purchase‍SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/tips-on-how-to-write-a-follow-up-email/">TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE A FOLLOW-UP EMAIL</a>‍<h1>How important are subject lines in follow-up emails?</h1>Sending a follow-up email to a recipient often shows them that you care enough to continue the conversation. It is a great way to depict your sincerity in requesting information or a response.But in a world where the delete button gets pressed faster than lightning, how can you make sure that the recipient opens your follow-up email?The answer is simple - by ensuring a well-crafted subject line.A follow-up email subject line is the first thing that a reader notices about an email, so crafting it well is extremely crucial. Typically, marketers and companies personalize subject lines by using a variety of tactics to ensure that the follow-up email catches the recipient’s attention.‍<h1>Writing subject lines: Best practices</h1>By now, it is apparent that subject lines can make or break the deal when it comes to a recipient opening up your email. A good subject line can help your e-mail stand out amongst the sea of emails in people’s inboxes. It acts as a great motivator to get the intended recipient to open the mail and engage with your business. This is especially true in the case of follow-up emails. A little more work needs to be put into them as these emails are often sent to those readers who have not paid attention the first time around.‍Here are some practices you can follow while drafting a subject line for follow-up emails:<h3>Keep it personal</h3>Did you know that follow-up emails can be personalized for the intended recipient? Instead of sounding like a generic email sent to thousands of users, your email can have the recipient’s name, and other details. This helps grab their attention much faster. &nbsp;‍<h3>Keep it crisp</h3>According to Walker Sands, subject lines that have less than 50 characters have a 12% chance of a higher open rate and a 75% chance of a higher click-through rate, when compared to emails that have longer subject lines. So, focus on keeping the subject lines short and crisp.‍<h3>Keep it interesting</h3>Piquing your customer’s interest is something every subject line should do - after all, why would someone open an email if the opening isn’t too interesting? Unique subject lines help capture audience attention and motivate users to open emails.‍<h3>Keep it valuable</h3>Customers often open emails that promise them value. Hence, the subject line of your follow-up email needs to be so impactful that a customer feels convinced enough that it will offer them some value.‍<h3>Keep it trustworthy</h3>When it comes to establishing a business or a brand, it is crucial to forge a relationship based on trust with your customers. Since customers value engaging more with trustworthy entities, you must ensure that your subject line is aligned with the information offered in the email.‍<h3>Keep it Clean</h3>If you’re looking to build a good reputation in the market, ensure that your email subject line is free from grammatical errors and punctuation. Remember, this can be a huge turn-off to most people, and they may even associate your brand with spam in one look.‍SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/what-ingredients-make-a-great-outbound-email/">WHAT INGREDIENTS MAKE A GREAT OUTBOUND EMAIL?</a>‍<h1>Don’t Forget to Test your Subject Lines</h1>Did you know that 90% of marketers don’t just send out their email with a subject line - they test it first?That’s right. To ensure that a subject line works in the manner you intend it to, you need to test it out first. The old-school way to do that is to get feedback from a colleague, team member, or a friend. Alternatively, you can use subject line testers online or run campaigns with A/B testing.When testing out a subject line, make sure you’ve gone through the grammar, spelling, and removed any unnecessary words.‍<h1>15 Great follow-up email subject lines &nbsp;</h1>Here’s a list of 15 well-crafted follow-up subject lines, and reasons for why these may work for you:‍ &nbsp;1. Subject Line: Hey Max, Wednesday meeting at 4 pmWhy It Works: Such a follow-up email subject line is personalized and creates a sense of urgency, grabbing their attention and urging the reader to act promptly.‍2. Great talking to you today, I wanted to share something else..A brief and to-the-point follow-up email subject line that thanks them for their time. The next part piques their interest by sharing some more information.‍3. We heard you, and we want to talk.The human touch makes the email more personalized and incentivizes the reader to open it. Here, the subject line makes it apparent that the email is regarding following up on engagement that the reader had initiated.‍4. Regina, unlock this festive deal now!This creates a sense of urgency and uses an interesting pun to depict an ongoing festival/holiday.‍5. Jim, what would it take you to switch to &lt;your product name&gt;?This subject line is simple yet effective as it becomes a conversation starter. As it is to the point it will come across as genuine and urge the reader to reply.‍6. You’re not aloneSuch a follow-up email line offers a hook to the customer, enough to pique their interest about the probable subject of the email.‍7. Here’s a story for you…This unique subject line offers customers value and gives them something interesting to think about.‍8. Claim your product discount coupon today!Customers love freebies. Telling your customers about that in your email subject can exponentially increase the chances of the recipient opening your email.‍9. Here are some benefits you can availThis gives the customer a peek into something they may be missing out on and intrigues them to open the email to find out the benefits.‍10. Max, are we still on for 12?A strong subject line like this reinforces a message/meeting with the intended customer. It can also be used by e-commerce companies or brands that may be going live with a sale or a seminar.‍11. Here’s how ABC closed more than X no. of deals in 1-monthSuch subject lines offer the customer some value and lead them to think they can grow too.‍12. We’re going live in 3 hours!Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and remind the user to be on time often work well.‍13. How happy are you with the &lt;current software&gt;?Direct questions make customers think about the product or the item in question.‍14. We missed you. Here’s a free trial to make your Wednesday better &nbsp;Such a subject line tells the user that the brand wants to be in touch with them and cares about them enough to offer them value to return.‍15. Having FOMO? You don’t want to miss this!Such a subject line creates a sense of urgency and makes the user want to open the email as soon as possible in the fear of missing out on something.<h2> In conclusion</h2>While there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to writing email subject lines, especially for follow-up emails, it’s crucial to keep some best practices handy. It is easy to write subject lines the first time around, but it is highly critical to draft a good follow-up email subject line. Good subject lines often get passed, but great subject lines can motivate the reader to open the email. &nbsp;Remember, the subject line is as important (if not more!) as the email itself. After all, if the prompt is not good enough, a user may not even consider opening the e-mail! So, the next time you’re sending out an email, keep these best practices in mind to draft high-performing subject lines that will help keep your users engaged.With Outplay you can send high-performing <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multichannel-outreach/email">sales emails</a> to your prospects? You can also create email campaigns, automate sequences, get insights, and set triggers to follow up. Curious to know how it works? <a href="https://accounts.outplayhq.com/signup">Sign up for a free demo today</a>.

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15 Follow-up email subject lines

You sales folks don’t easily take ‘No’ for an answer, do you? Why should you though? Prospects rarely reply or respond positively the initial few times you reach out to them. Whether it’s for setting up a meeting or for gathering some information. And this only makes being persistent all the more necessary. In fact, <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/sale-follow-ups/">data</a> shows that 60% of customers say no 4 times before saying yes whereas 48% of salespeople never even make a single follow-up attempt.You definitely don’t want to be a part of the 48%! So, what’s the solution? Follow-up. And, what better than the most relied mode of communication - the email. Yes, follow-up emails are the best way to get your prospects’ attention.<h2>Table of Content</h2><ol><li><a href="#subject-line">Use an engaging subject line</a></li><li><a href="#effective-email">Provide Context with an Effective Email Opener</a></li><li><a href="#state-the-intent">State the Intent and Value Proposition Clearly</a></li><li><a href="#cta">Conclude the Email with a Call-to-Action</a></li></ol><h2>Now, What’s a Follow-Up Email?</h2>A follow-up email is an email sent to a potential client you came in contact with at a business event, through a mutual contact, a cold email, a cold call, or during a demo. This email outreach strategy acts as a prompt or reminder of the previous communication you both had.I know, that following up when the prospects didn’t reply during your initial attempt can make you feel a little awkward, as though you are bothering them. But believe me, in the sales world it is necessary because it is a crucial touchpoint in the sales process.To tell the truth, you’d be more awkward when your teammates get more leads due to their endless follow-up, and you don’t. Because believe it or not, sending more emails increases your chances of hearing back from the prospects by as high as <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/sale-follow-ups/">25%</a>. But, 70% of the salespeople don’t go beyond one.The intent behind every follow-up email is to generate a reply, say for setting up a meeting, making a sale, or getting more information related to the prospect. &nbsp;So, it's important to make it eye-catching and ensure there’s some value addition to the prospect. This not only increases your chances of getting email opens but also that of getting replies.<h2>How to Write a Follow-Up Email</h2>Now that we’ve seen what follow-up emails are and also established the need to write them, let’s &nbsp;see how to write a follow-up email. Here are some tips that will make your email outreach successful

<h2>1. Use an engaging subject line</h2><img class="image_resized" style="width:480px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/62c462c2eaece146bf83a944_Blog%20page_Illustrations-01.png" alt="Write a follow-up email using an engaging subject line" loading="lazy">Where does your attention go first when you open your inbox? The subject line, right? Your prospects’ do too. Hence using a strong and compelling subject line in your follow-up email can save it from reaching the trash along with other unsolicited spam in their inbox. It never hurts to put some thought into writing one, especially when <a href="https://www.business2community.com/infographics/understanding-importance-e-mail-subject-lines-infographic-01492127#lE1rHFCWlJQGt1dc.97">47%</a> of email recipients open their emails based on the subject line.Also keeping it short, fun, and distinct can make it on top of your prospects’ priority list. Anything between 4 to 7 words tends to get high open rates says <a href="https://blog.marketo.com/2018/02/email-subject-line-length-works-best.html">Mike Madden</a> in his blog. Concise subject lines are also comfortable for the ones who read emails on their mobile devices.Addressing recipients by their first names in the subject line adds a personal touch to the email. Since the preview text is visible go for a crisp synopsis of the email there. Moreover, do not forget to conduct A/B testing on the emails, as that will ensure the most impactful emails reach your prospects’ inboxes.You can base your subject lines on the examples given below:<ul><li>[First name], Here are the next steps</li><li>[First name], Need our input</li><li>Pleasure catching with you [First Name]</li><li>Let’s go over this again, shall we?</li></ul>

<h2>2. Provide Context with an Effective Email Opener</h2><img class="image_resized" style="width:480px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/62c463f57c02fa48e0ee5858_Blog%20page_Illustrations_Provide%20Context%20with%20an%20Effective%20Email%20Opener.png" alt="Provide context with an effective email opener when composing a follow-up email" loading="lazy">Your prospects receive lots of cold emails every day. And let’s say this is your first follow-up email to them or that it’s been quite a while since you last spoke. How do you get them to recall you?Simple! Start your email by providing a context such as a meeting you had with them, an identifier of some sort, or a reference from a previous email or phone conversation. Even if the recipient is unable to remember at first, your emphasis on the initial communication helps jog their memory. This in turn makes it easier for them to recognize you and react positively to the email.Here are some openers you might want to use in your follow up email:<ul><li>I’m reaching out to follow up on the email I sent you a few weeks back [mention the topic and when you sent the mail]</li><li>We met last week at the [mention the name of the event, conference, or the location]</li><li>I just wanted to follow up to see what you thought about [mention the topic]</li><li>XYZ [mention the name of common connection] suggested I reach out to you regarding [mention the pain point you want to address]</li></ul>

<h2>3. State the Intent and Value Proposition Clearly</h2><img class="image_resized" style="width:480px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/62c46450bb2d9e3dd5f705bf_Blog%20page_Illustrations_State%20the%20Intent%20and%20Value%20Proposition%20Clearly.png" alt="Write a follow-up email by stating the intent and value proposition clearly" loading="lazy">The email should effectively communicate the purpose of your follow-up. Hence avoid any form of ambiguity. Be direct, concise, and to the point. This will create an impression that you value the prospects’ time and want their attention. A great way to do this is by watching your word count. Yes, keeping your email length anywhere between 50-125 words can increase email open rates by as high as <a href="https://blog.boomerangapp.com/2016/02/7-tips-for-getting-more-responses-to-your-emails-with-data/">50%</a>.Also, make it a point to keep the email tone positive as data shows that emails with warm tones have <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/01/how-to-follow-up-with-someone-whos-not-getting-back-to-you">10-15%</a> higher response rates than the ones with neutral tones. Doing so will most likely lead to the prospects responding positively to your request for a meeting or giving you the information you need.Also, remember this is an important email and you cannot waste it with a lazy follow-up. Along with the intent, you must also state the value your product adds to the prospect and how it will address their pain points. Additionally, including success stories, statistics, free demos, and trials, makes the email opens more worthy of your prospects' time.Let’s take a look at some ways you can explain the intent while adding value:<ul><li>As we discussed here’s some information about how [the product name] can help you solve/ eliminate [prospect’s pain point].</li><li>[The product name] has helped our customers [state the benefit gained]. We can help you solve/eliminate [prospect's pain point] too. Try the 14-day free trial to experience the change firsthand.</li></ul>SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/what-ingredients-make-a-great-outbound-email/">WHAT INGREDIENTS MAKE A GREAT OUTBOUND EMAIL?</a>

<h2>4. Conclude the Email with a Call-to-Action</h2><img class="image_resized" style="width:480px;" src="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62678b8d0b177c0710b689ef/62c464d0c60dbcb2a46750f9_Blog%20page_Illustrations_Conclude%20the%20Email%20with%20a%20Call-to-Action.png" alt="Conclude the email with a call-to-action when writing a follow-up email" loading="lazy">You’ve garnered an email open, set the context, and also explained the purpose. Now it’s time to wrap up the email, but not without a call-to-action! You can explicitly ask for what you want and conclude the email.A right call-to-action should state the next steps the prospects should take to move the conversation forward. And your email is successful only when they take the action you want them to. So, make it easy for them to respond.Suppose you want to set up a meeting with them, suggest a specific date and time like:<ul><li>Can we get on a quick 20-minute call at 4 pm on Tuesday?</li><li>Are you the right person to talk to about this? If not, could you point me to the right person, so I can set up a 30-minute product demo call?</li></ul>If you want them to take it forward you can use something like:<ul><li>What are the next steps from your end?</li><li>Just a little confused. Will your next action be ABC or XYZ?</li></ul>SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/best-email-closing-lines/">SEAL THE DEAL WITH THESE BEST EMAIL CLOSING LINES</a>

<h1>Summing Up</h1>Follow-up emails don’t stop with one, it is a continuous game. You need to constantly keep following up with your prospects. The aim should be to engage them by providing value, keeping you on top of their minds, and building a relationship.Also remember, while email is an important follow-up method, you should not stick to one outreach channel. Diversifying your communication channels in addition to emails can help in better prospecting and nurturing. You can experience the power of <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multichannel-outreach/email">email</a> and other prospecting channels with <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a>, our new-age sales engagement platform.

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How to Write a Follow-Up Email - 4 Tips to Get your Email Outreach Turning into Leads

The sales landscape today is very different. The volume of prospects, pipeline, and revenue are huge. So, when you hire AEs, the most important thing you want them to do is to engage new prospects and close more deals. But when you look at how an average AE spends his time, it is evident that many processes are keeping him from selling, thus affecting his sales outreach strategy.&nbsp;And surprisingly, this doesn’t include dealing with noisy coworkers, workplace gossip, or even lack of skills to make a sale happen. But, it is doing tons of time-consuming manual tasks! &nbsp;<a href="https://www.salesforce.com/blog/four-cornerstones-sales-productivity/">Salesforce research</a> reveals that sales reps spend 66 percent of their time on non-revenue generating activities. While that’s a bitter pill to swallow, it is nevertheless true! Because along with opportunities, the sales evolution has given rise to more processes, tasks, and problems too. Hence non-selling tasks such as logging in, managing emails, updating customer information, and inputting sales data keep your AEs busy throughout the week.&nbsp;But that’s worrisome, isn't it?

<h1>Outsource The Tasks To Technology Already&nbsp;</h1>SaaS sales reps typically have a lot of opportunities to manage daily. Their outreach process includes nurturing leads by establishing trust, boosting product awareness, and building relationships. And these efforts to convert leads to customers take time. This means they must operate efficiently to perform at their peak.But, the inefficient tasks cause them to lose valuable prospecting and closing time. So what do you do about this? Get your sales reps to outsource their repetitive tasks to technology. And what better than using a Sales Engagement Platform (SEP) to fine-tune outreach inefficiencies.

<h1>No more repetitive tasks with a SEP&nbsp;</h1>Yes, you’ve read that right. As <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/sales-engagement-the-definitive-guide-for-platform-selection">Gartner</a> rightly said, a SEP is a level 1 technology and a mandatory purchase for sales teams everywhere. With a single interface, it helps efficiently plan, track, execute, manage, and analyze interactions between your AEs and customers. This way they can spend less time on low-value manual tasks and close more deals instead.Using a SEP can improve your AEs' sales outreach efforts manifold giving them more closed deals. Three major task categories they benefit the most are:

<h2>1. Engaging prospects on multiple channels</h2>Reaching out to prospects is the most important task of your AE’s day. But with prospects present on multiple channels, manually reaching out and following up on every channel becomes an arduous process for them.&nbsp;The right sales engagement platform supports connecting with prospects on multiple platforms. Outplay’s <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/multi-channel-sales-engagement">multi-channel outreach</a>, for example, makes reaching out at scale via email, call, SMS, chat, LinkedIn, and Twitter possible. This takes away the burden of switching between platforms for your AEs.

Moreover, a SEP also makes automated cadences possible by creating a schedule for sales teams to follow up with new prospects and follow through with customers. Because manually managing touchpoints to track each prospect’s cadence becomes really difficult. Automated cadences sent in a timely and effective manner help your AEs diversify and scale their sales outreach.

<h2>2. Toggling between tools in the sales stack</h2>Did you know your AEs generally go back and forth with many tools in the sales stack? They do so to identify a prospect’s stage in the sales funnel, build a lasting relationship with them and measure the impact of outreach. But they end up losing so much of their precious time in this process. &nbsp;A SEP, however, has a solution for this. Integrating with numerous tools, it provides your sales reps a holistic view of all the prospect-related activities on a single platform. This makes taking action on the right data at the right time effortless. Marrying Outplay for instance, with tools like <a href="https://outplayhq.com/salesforce-integration">Salesforce</a> and <a href="https://outplayhq.com/hubspot-integration">Hubspot</a>, the SEP has made the lives of AEs easier. They are now free from the burden of manually updating data on the CRM as it is automatically synced and updated immediately.Similarly, the integrated calling engine in the SEP makes handling calls and voicemails efficient. Your sales reps can easily call, record, transfer, and send voicemails with the feature. The call notes and recordings help analyze the approach and improve communication with prospects. And the best part, all the data is stored on the platform for easy reference later.

<h2>3. Tracking Key Metrics&nbsp;</h2>Your AEs are constantly trying new ways of engaging with prospects. From cold emails to calls to LinkedIn messages. Both them and you as Sales Managers want to understand the effectiveness of their efforts along with their performance. For this, you need to create a report on a sales tool, download the report in a sheet and then manually manipulate it. That’s just too much effort, right? &nbsp;Not when using a sales engagement platform. Integrating with different sales tools, a SEP shows you all the data in one place. It makes tracking the sequences easy with detailed analytics on email open rates, click rates, and booked meetings. Outplay’s <a href="https://outplayhq.com/features/sales-analytics">sales analytics</a> enables AEs to course correct and close more deals.

Additionally, with a SEP you can also track your sales team’s performance. By changing filters such as calls, email, messages you can track activity-based analytics of your entire team’s performance or one AE in particular. Your low-performing AEs too can use the analytics to improve.

<h1>Wrapping up&nbsp;</h1>Technology has made our lives easier at many levels, so why not use it to automate the manual tasks that eat away your AEs time? Sales engagement platforms such as <a href="https://outplayhq.com/">Outplay</a> unleash their potential by automating time-consuming and trivial daily tasks. This not only leaves them time to engage with more prospects but also do what they are hired for - close more deals!

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Are manual tasks eating away your AEs’ sales outreach time?

<h1>Table of Content</h1><ul><li><a href="#subject-line">Subject line: Keep it short but concise</a></li><li><a href="#sender-name">Sender’s name: Use your name not the company’s</a></li><li><a href="#compelling">Preview text: Make it compelling</a></li><li><a href="#day-time">Day and time: Pick the right ones</a></li><li><a href="#a/b-test">A/B testing: Do not neglect it</a></li></ul>As the quarter begins, with fresh quotas to achieve, you find yourself actively chasing new prospects. Launching cold email campaigns. Carefully lacing words to impress the prospect. Yet as the days pass, the email open rates are disappointingly low. Why? Because an average prospect’s inbox is constantly flooded with tons of unsolicited/ cold emails. And more often than not, your emails either end up in the spam or trash folders.The solution then? Stop focusing all your attention on crafting the best email. Instead, balance it with equal focus on other key elements that affect an email open rate. Read on to find what those elements are and some tips to leverage them to your advantage.

<h1>1. Subject line: Keep it short but concise</h1>First impressions matter! And you can create the best one with an engaging subject line. According to <a href="https://optinmonster.com/101-email-subject-lines-your-subscribers-cant-resist/">OptinMonster</a>, 47 percent of recipients make their decision to open the email based on the subject line. The subject line contains the most important few words of your email. It instantly determines if your prospect turns into a customer or disengages completely. &nbsp;Hence keep it short, clear, and address the recipient by their first name. Also, choose words that tap into innate human emotions. Use clever wordplay for instance that either cracks them up, piques their curiosity, or has them saying ‘Tell me more’. &nbsp;“Before your next pipeline review”, for example, is a great way to get your prospect interested. “Two more days” on the other hand invokes urgency and guarantees an immediate opening. ‍

<h1>2. Sender’s name: Use your name not the company’s</h1>The sender’s name is yet another aspect that draws your prospect’s attention when they receive an email. And since there is no dearth of spammers in today’s world, receiving it from a real person highly increases the chances of opening the email. So, next time you send an email rather than using a generic name such as ‘Sales Team’, personalize it with a name and use it in the email id too. &nbsp;Why, you ask? Simply because people respond to people. Moreover, it builds trust. The same trust that boosts sales and leads to business growth. It also creates an impression on them that they are working with you - an individual to whom the customers matter.‍

<h1>3. Preview text: Make it compelling</h1>The preview text gives a sneak peek into the email content. And the more compelling you make it, the more email open rates you get. Email applications such as Outlook and Gmail display a few words of the email next to the subject line. &nbsp;This is your chance to include a crisp synopsis and grab the reader’s attention. Mind you, it shouldn’t be more than 50 characters. This is an excellent chance to influence the prospect’s decision to click open and must not be missed.

<h1>4. Day and time: Pick the right ones</h1>All your efforts to get more email opens can go into vain if it is not sent on the right day and time. The rule of thumb, therefore, is to know your target audiences well and send them emails when they are most likely to check their inboxes. Prospects that work a 9 to 5 job are more likely to open emails when sent during their work hours as opposed to before or after. &nbsp;Targeting prospects’ lunchtimes and evening breaks could also be a great way to get their attention. <a href="https://www.getresponse.com/">GetResponse</a>, an email marketing software in its <a href="https://www.getresponse.com/resources/reports/email-marketing-benchmarks#time-frequency">analyses</a>, found that the average email open rates were highest on Fridays while weekends saw a drop in email open rates. &nbsp;However keep in mind, not all prospects are the same and the same rules may not apply to everyone. Hence testing and tweaking the approach can go a long way in increasing email open rates.SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/what-ingredients-make-a-great-outbound-email/">WHAT INGREDIENTS MAKE A GREAT OUTBOUND EMAIL?</a>

<h1>5. A/B testing: Do not neglect it</h1>Contrary to popular belief, A/B testing is not limited only to landing pages! It works equally well for email marketing too. The two versions (A and B) aid in measuring how impactful your effort to engage users is. You should thus test all the above email elements such as the subject line, sender field, preview text, and appropriate send timings to increase your email open rates. &nbsp;This is a popular marketing experiment. You will not only know your audience better but will also target them in the most effective manner. Take the subject line for instance. Testing it will answer many questions. Is it interesting or vague? Is it too long or too short? Or is it even the right approach for all customer segments? &nbsp;Now, you have a better understanding of the elements that influence an email open, don’t you? So, use these and see your email open rates go sky-high. &nbsp;SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/best-email-closing-lines/">SEAL THE DEAL WITH THESE BEST EMAIL CLOSING LINES</a>

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Monika Jahnavi

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