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<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate. Today, we’ll run through Tito Bohrt, CEO, AltiSales' talk on 'From cold call to closed - Strategies, tactics, and metrics to master the outbound sales funnel.' &nbsp;

<h2>Transcript</h2>David YoungbloodWe did it. We're back. Hey, everyone, welcome back. Hopefully, you had a good break. Join us in the booth, ask some great questions, and met some great people. You should also use that time to network professionally with everybody else here, right, other folks with similar interests, following and talking and seeing similar things. So do absolutely leverage just on your professional network myself to hit me up on LinkedIn. Happy to have a chat. But next. We are very, very excited to announce our next speaker who's promised us a very interactive and exciting session. The man, the myth, the legend, Tito Bohrt, who is as many of you know, the CEO at AltiSales, a company focused on building outbound SDR teams, right. So, he spent the last 10 years building over 50 sales teams from scratch, right? So, he's hired and trained, over 100 individual sales reps and top performers. He's, he's a blogger, a professional blogger, right or semiprofessional blogger, however you want to portray that at sales hacker and on LinkedIn. He's also a mentor at the alchemist accelerator in San Francisco, a public speaker for sales events such as outreaches unleash, and an angel investor in b2b SaaS startups, also, most recently, a celebrity guest speaker here at Accelerate sponsored by Outplay here in 2021. So, with no further ado, we'll bring him on stage. The one the only Tito Bohrt.Tito BohrtAwesome. Hello, everybody seems like my camera went off for a second there. But I'm excited to be here. And we are going to make this session fun interactive, we're going to be covering as much ground as we can. So, I'm going to go a little bit fast on should be a little fun, David.David YoungbloodAwesome. Well, the stage is yours.Tito BohrtAwesome. So, as you know from the top of the conversation today, we're going to talk from a cold call to a closed one. I'm going to talk about strategies, tactics, and metrics to master the outbound sales funnel, I'm going to help you guys understand where the world is going when it comes to outbound. And for that, I'm going to be sharing all sorts of tidbits of information. I'm going to start probably with a quick PowerPoint. But then we can dive into like life dashboards, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and how to work in different areas. What I really want from this session is I want people to chime in, I want people to participate. I want people to ask questions, and leave comments. Regardless of if it's the Q&amp;A or the chat, do me a favor and participate. So, the first thing I want to talk about is that I think sales is broken. Like too many companies are doing this wrong. Too many companies are hiring SDRs right out of college with zero experience, or they're putting them in a role where they're asking them to do too many things that are unfamiliar with, like, I am seeing my younger brother's friends graduate college, and what are they used to on a daily basis. They never pick up the phone, they don't even call their friends, their mom, or their girlfriends. When they write anything, it's a five-page essay, they're always trying to figure out how do I make it longer? How do I increase the font from 12 to 12.2? So, the professor doesn't realize that I'm trying to increase my wording. And how do I like, you know, add as much fluff as possible.And then we hire those same people. And we put them in a role where we're like, not only you're going to be making cold calls and sending emails, but the cold calls, you may have to be short and to the point and so do the emails. And by the way, you need to learn, Outplay and Lusha and Lead IQ and Zoominfo and Vidyard on LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and by the way, research all your data, copy, paste a bunch of stuff, put it in a place and split your time in a beautiful way where everybody is, where you are being hyper-productive. So, I'm gonna share screens to highlight what we are expecting. Let's see screen sharing. There we go. This is what we're expecting from our SDRs. Right, a million tasks.Here's your pie chart, of how you split your time during the day, please go do good work on what happens, that doesn't happen. This happens. These sorts of emails that we all get, especially if you're an executive, you're getting these emails, many times. Hopefully, they're not as horrible as this is, but there's no spacing between paragraphs, two bullet points are too far indented. There's bolding for no reason there's a vertical line of the subject line two dots on a question like that makes no sense. No image in the signature, no logo, no phase, nothing. What the hell like this makes no sense to me. So, what I want to run you guys through is what is future self-development? How are we going to succeed? And here's what that will look like. Step number one, you're going to get a phone call. You look at your phone, you're like who the hell is calling me from Florida. You're probably not going to pick up. So, what happens a few days later or a few hours later. Here's what happens a few hours later, if you're running a world-class SDR team, come on screen share again, you're scrolling through LinkedIn, you're going through your day. And suddenly as a prospect, you see an ad. And the ad is personalized to your company. So, if you were working for IBM, you would be seeing this ad from AltiSales, it says IBM is gonna be a world-class SDR team. And by the way, the top part is also personalized. It says there are hundreds of companies out there that need solutions from IBM, but they aren't coming to your website. Even the bottom it says IBM's revenue machine is about to take off, personalize, personalized Ad, okay, cool, good loads of companies not doing that. But what do you think is gonna happen? Nobody's gonna pay attention. They're not going to click a lot. Why? Because they never do. So, what's gonna happen, you're gonna call them again, we're gonna see again, your number from Florida a few days later, they're gonna be like, I'm not gonna pick up so a few days later again, or a few hours later, you're gonna perhaps send him an email, it's or the email we're gonna send them an email, the email is gonna be personalized. I'm here what I'm bringing is different templates from different examples, just so you guys understand that this is in particular to AltiSales. But it should look something like this right? Happy Thursday brand. They called you this number congrats on your new class. This is to a University College Board says you admit X number applicants blah, blah, blah blah, like, what I've done here is I've color-coded this template. So, you'll understand certain parts of this template are exactly what I called a template, and certain parts are variable. If you're using a good sales engagement tool, the sales engagement tool allows you to put nice variables in there. That's what you should be doing. The real question, though, is okay, how am I going to find these variables? How am I gonna get the right information? All you really got to do is be diligent with your process. I said too many SDRs are being tasked with too many things. So, this is a good client experience. This is what I want to receive as a client. But how do I execute as an SDR? Well, let's make it even more complex. Imagine that this email also gets ignored. Okay, you call them again, finally, they pick up they say hello, this is Brent. I'll say, Brent. This is Tito. I'm calling from XYZ company, do you have two minutes. He's like, no, no, dude, I can't. I'm super busy. You can go send him a connect request on LinkedIn and tried to connect. You're starting to see the interplay. What if they don't?What if they don't pick up the phone? Well, you don't want to let them know you call so maybe you send another email or another you send a LinkedIn request or a LinkedIn message with a message like this right? Hey, I sent you an email I almost called you blah blah the subject line of the email was x by the way, love your experience this previous company yours have a recommendation for this person, blah, blah, blah. I see you speak German Grusse. What I'm trying to take you guys through is what the future looks like for sales development. Sales development is not let’s grab a template and blast the hell out of it unless grab, connect and sell or Orem or cold call the hell out everybody. The future of sales development is as a prospect, feeling excited about people reaching out to me and that looking very, very professional. So, calls, emails, LinkedIn ads, I guess what if you were running ads, you can even text your clients, if you text them, text them from your cell phone, not from a platform. Why? Because you want, I message to work. You're going to continue to improve and evolve the way that you're doing things. So, there's a really good example Hey, a few people in your team clicked on the ad that we're displaying it says Domino's Pizza, right? Domino's. Let's talk about API security, blah, blah, blah, I'm from this company. And then some people might respond. So, I'm going to take a quick break there. Um, to bring David back on the screen. And, you know, what are you thinking about this approach? You know, do we have any questions from the audience so far?David YoungbloodHello, yeah, back. Make sure you do your sound-check. Good. Yeah. That is the takeaway that I got from it, right, and a word in me pointing this out in chat is evolving, it's time to evolve. It's time to change and level up the game, right? A new way to go about it. Because what's old is not working. It's broken. It's outdated, antiquated, and not effective, ultimately. In a nutshell.Correct. I agree. Now, the most common question I get here David is okay, Tito, I get it. We can have all but everybody saying that but it's so much work, dude. Like I'm an SDR I'm finding my leads. I'm doing my stuff like I don't have time. You're telling me I gotta make 50 to $100 a day you want me to send 50 to 100 emails you want me to research, you want me to personalize you want me to text you want me to? So, like how am I gonna ever do that?David YoungbloodYeah, absolutely. And then like the not just what you need to do, but how you're gonna go about it. Right? Is it we get the why, but the how you're gonna go about it's definitely a challenge for a lot of folks to have to answer? We do have a question if you're ready for one as well.Tito BohrtYes, sure.David YoungbloodSo, this one's kind of a this or that approach, right? So, I message versus platform messaging. What's your take?Tito BohrtI prefer i-messaging because it feels more human, rather than the platform messaging, which usually whenever you're messaging from a platform, it will show up as a text message, not like an iMessage. So not everybody has an iPhone. But if you're reaching out to, you know, VP, Director, C level executives, those executives usually have money and usually buy expensive phones doesn't mean that everybody's gonna buy an iPhone, but the iPhone tends to have some correlation with wealth. Like, the people with a lot of money have iPhones. So, when you start i-messaging, they will see you, and you'll stand out from the crowd. That's the only thing I'll say,David YoungbloodOkay. Gotcha way to differentiate yourself, in addition to the right message, in addition to your other approaches, but differentiation can be as much as the device you're using. Right?Tito BohrtCorrect. Okay, so I want to go back to tell people how we're going to operationalize this to excellence. It's telling me I can't present while questions are being shown.David YoungbloodYep, here you go. I just stopped doing that part. And back to you.

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Tito Bohrt - From cold call to closed | Accelerate 2021

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<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate. Today, we’ll run through David Dulany, CEO, Tenbound's talk on 'The Amazing SDR Trifecta.'&nbsp;

<h1>Transcript</h1>David YoungbloodThat was almost perfect, right? I mean, the timing was perfect. No. Okay, that's my bad everybody. Apologies, we're back. We're here, we're jumping into it again. And we'll make up some break time for you on the back end. So, that's my assurance to you. But uh, here we are moving right along in Accelerate 2021. With our next presenter, we have an amazing speaker, the amazing STR Trifecta presented by David Dulany, CEO of Tenbound. If you haven't heard about him, a great organization should definitely check him out. David is, you know, actually the founder and CEO of Tenbound, they are a research and advisory firm. They're focused on sales development, right? They're focused on what matters most to most of us that are here today. So, in addition to that, he's got extensive personal experience in sales development as a producer and a manager. And he also recently coauthored the sales development framework, right, which is how to build and scale, a highly productive sales development program. So more on that coming to you from David himself. Let's get him on stage and get going. Let's see. All right, DavidDavid DulanyAll right. Thanks, David.David YoungbloodYeah, so just to keep things simple for everyone, much like we do here at Outplay, you're all welcome to, at least during the session and longer if you want to refer to me as YB or Youngblood is what the team calls me because we have two David's here at Outplay as well. So, we'll keep that part easy for the chat. Again, use the chat, use the Q&amp;A session, and feel free to tag, share, comment on LinkedIn and other social as well. And with that, David we'll turn it over to you.David DulanyYeah, I'm so thrilled, thank you so much for having me on and being able to spend some time with the group. Really excited to be here for accelerate. And it's just been a great show so far. And it's an honor to be here. So, I hope that I really want to add value and give you some tactical strategies and tips today and make it as interactive as possible. So YB you'll be in the comments. And if there are questions just jump in anytime. And let me know, you know, how we can, you know, help people more with this material. As YB mentioned, I run Tenbound, which is a research advisory firm that's focused on the SDR space. So essentially anything that has to do with building a predictable pipeline for B2B companies, and we primarily work with software as a service company in helping them with their strategy and their tactics and their people and, you know, anything that helps to drive that pipeline process. And, you know, we work with a number of teams here in Silicon Valley, and beyond. And we started to see patterns of what really makes a great SDR. And so, whether you're running an SDR team, or doing enablement for the SDR team, or you're an SDR you know, you're trying to think of what really makes somebody successful in this role. And you know, how can we sort of bottle that and give at least sort of a map to be able to develop yourself or your team into somebody who's just absolutely crushing the job and making a big impact. And we kind of boiled it down into what I'll be talking about today, which is the amazing SDR trifecta, and I've got some, some notes here that we can go through. And you'll see if you head over to the Tenbound website, I'll give you the website.We were really into Venn diagrams, so we kind of boiled it down. You know, answering the question, what makes an amazing SDR what makes somebody you know, get promoted faster, make a bigger impact drive more pipeline, and just, you know, be able to support the sales team in the best way possible as an SDR and I use the term SDR interchangeably, whether it's BDR, LDR, et cetera. It's the team that's driving the pipeline for the company, setting up appointments and doing all those activities. So, what are how do we boil down the big three and also, you know, in the overlapping sections, if you have two of these big three, but you're missing one of them, what ends up being the end result. And we often see that one, two, or three of these aspects are really lacking in the development and the skill set of the SDR team. And those are some of the weak spots that we need to work on. So, let's dive in. So, what are the big three? So, we essentially boil them down to industry and persona knowledge, prospecting and general sales skills, and then that gritty entrepreneurial mindset. So, the mindset that drives the behavior behind being a great SDR. So, you know, if you look at the way that training and coaching run in most SDR programs, especially in a remote environment, you know, there could be one, two or three of these missing, right from the beginning, you might get a little bit of product training, learn the tools, you know, learn how to use outplay and, and your CRM, etc, maybe get a little bit of product training from your product manager, and you're on your own basically. Okay, so go get it right. But there are some major things missing here. And this is what we've seen, not only in companies that we've worked with but also just in my past, I've run SDR programs for seven years before starting Tenbound. And I noticed that there were certain SDRs that were on the team that absolutely crushed it, and were able to, like I said, get promoted faster, gain more respect, get more appointments, and generally make a bigger impact. So, they had these three ingredients. Okay, so let's dive in. So, ingredient number one, one, A, and then I'll go into one B. So, ingredient, one be industry knowledge. And you could call this also sort of business acumen. So how much do you really know about the overall industry that you're calling out to? And how much do you really how comfortable are talking about their business issues. And so, this really has nothing to do necessarily with the product that you're selling. And the product that you're representing when you're doing your outreach, or you're following up with leads, but it's actually the business issues that the folks that are either reaching out to you or you're reaching out to are grappling with every day, from a business perspective, the industry that you're calling on has its own certain vocabulary, it's got its own way of talking about problems. It's got its own way of talking about the present and the future of the industry. And, and if you're coming in from the outside, and you really have no idea of any of these aspects, then, you know, immediately there are issues with your messaging and your credibility and the ability to actually speak with the prospects. So, thing number one is, how great are you at becoming fluent in the industry that you're talking to? And so, if you're talking to multiple industries, you know, we're talking and this is a long process, it's a long game, but maybe just a few minutes a day in understanding the major business problems, the major vocabulary, and the struggles that the industry is going through as a whole. And then tie that back to how your specific products help to solve those. So how well can you rate yourself on your industry knowledge? The next is your personal knowledge. So, within that industry, there are the accounts. And then the accounts are essentially a group of people, whether they're the high-level decision-makers, the middle managers, or the end-users of your product. And within that group of people, there's generally a set of three to five major issues and pain points and problems that those people are trying to solve.So again, it goes back to how comfortable are you talking? First and foremost, about the overall personas, you know that you're going after? So, do you know their general titles? Do you know their general position within the company Do you know the major, you know, milestones that they're trying to achieve, you know, within their company? And, you know, obviously, you're not going to have to know everything about everybody, but you know, three to five major pain points that they're trying to solve at all three of those levels. So, at the decision-maker level, the middle manager level, and at the end-user level, how well do you know the personas that you're calling after? And what's their usual day? Like, you know, what's their usual level of experience? How do they get into the job? What's their vocabulary? And where do they go to learn about new trends within the marketplace? How comfortable? Are you talking about that with them? And so, you know, if you're, if you're coming in new to this industry, you're coming in new to understanding these personas, you know, this is your challenge over the next 369 months, to really start to go into, you know, some in-depth knowledge of what these people are actually going through, because they're people, right, the best SDRs realize they're not just names and phone numbers and emails, you know, in your, in your outplay sequence, right, they're actual people dealing with real problems, how well can you, you know, regurgitate those problems back and understand how they tie into the solution that you're providing. So, then I'll give you some tactical tips on how to do that if you're running a team or you're an SDR yourself. So, the next part of you know, the puzzle here is, the second big one is your prospecting and sales skills. So this is going to be, you know, the books, the training courses, the online, you know, courses that you go through that teach you the tactical skills, of how to make a cold call, to write an email to, you know, respond back when somebody is getting ready to hang up on you. All those tactical tools and tips are available out there. And especially as an SDR it's your own whole set of sales skills that you have to learn that's specific to being an SDR. And that's the Oh, you're the opener, right, you're the person that has to make the initial call and get five seconds on the phone with somebody, you're the person that has to write the amazing email sequence to be able to send it out. So those communication skills, the soft skills, of prospecting, of doing an opener, objection handling, you know, rebuttals coming back with a general overview of the pain points that people have, you know, having that so refined to the point where, you know, combined with the knowledge that you have, also having the prospecting skills, what makes you unstoppable. And, and all of those, those training courses are out there. And like I said, I'll give you some tactical tips. If your company is not providing you with any training, you're gonna have to go out and get it yourself. And so, let's talk about the real key here, that underpins the whole trifecta. And that is your mindset. And, and nobody really talks about this. But it this has become even more important, as we go into the second year now, of COVID. And a lot of SDRs are working from home. So, you're, if you think about it, you're completely isolated, at least in the old days, you know, you had your group of five or 10 compatriots there, who you could lean on and make friends with and you had your manager offering spot coaching and stuff like that. Now, you're completely on your own. So how do you get up every day and stay motivated and stay engaged and keep being curious and, and, and focused on the end result that you're trying to it all comes down to your mindset and how you can actually, you know, stay motivated and stay engaged in the fact that you might be an SDR for 1, 2, 3, 4 years sometimes, you know, if you're building your skills, but there's no necessarily promotion path for your company. How do you stay into this?And you know, hey, beyond that, a great SDR is absolutely invaluable to accompany and, and, you know, you can get into crazy. I mean, if you go, there's a website called rep view, and especially in Silicon Valley, I mean s great SDRs are making up to six figures right now on target. And that's real dollars that they're making. So, but you know, it takes a while to get to that range. And, and that your mindset is absolutely critical. So how do you stay within that positive, constructive, curious mindset that makes you want to learn about the industry, that makes you want to learn more about the personas that make you want to pursue prospecting and sales training classes to become better, you know, at those soft skills? So, you know, it's very important to think about the mindset, and bringing those all together, so, okay, so hopefully, I've convinced you that you got to have all three. And now let's talk, let's think about, if you don't, and, and you're missing one of the pieces. So, this, I see this a lot, you know, it's like you've got two of the three, but you're not quite there on one of them. So, let's say you're really good at the industry knowledge and the persona. So, I'll give you an example. I used to run a cybersecurity SDR team at a company that got bought out by Cisco. And they, you know, they were calling on cybersecurity professionals, who were extremely hardcore, they would give you literally five seconds on the phone. And, I mean, if you couldn't talk the talk and say something, you know, that was interesting about a pain point that they specifically had, that you were toast. And I found that the number one, SDR always on the team was somebody who had the industry and persona knowledge and knew enough about the industry and the persona, to be able to say something interesting within those first five seconds. And they were also incredibly gritty and entrepreneurial, they could bounce back after, theoretically, you know, getting punched in the face, over the phone, over and over and over again, because they had that right mindset. But they were unable to handle if somebody was mean to them on the phone, or their emails were not getting any response, or they were being treated poorly, or something like that, because they didn't know how to handle objections. And they didn't know how to articulate a good opener. So, they didn't have the prospecting and sales skills. So, they were working, I mean, you know, especially with the entrepreneurial mindset, &nbsp;and not getting any results because they didn't know how to handle an objection, they didn't know how to open a call, etc. So great first steps, but you're still going to be working really, really hard with no results.The other one is, that you're really good at handling objections, and you're really good at pitching at the beginning of your sales call. And everything's going great in that respect. But you get knocked out too easily. You have the industry vocabulary, you know what the pain points are, but you get knocked out too easily. So, you get on you give the perfect pitch, you handle objections, and let's face it, the prospects are still mean to you, or they insult you personally, etc. So then you don't have the right mindset you get knocked out, you know, so for the rest of the afternoon and now we're working from home right so the rest of the afternoon you're eating you know Ben and Jerry's ice cream and watching Netflix right we've all been there but you know if that happens too much and you're not holding yourself accountable because you don't have the right mindset then you're going to you know have a couple of good months but there could be months that pass where you don't get anything right because you couldn't motivate yourself and keep going. Okay, so now great we've got the prospecting skills we really get it that we're totally down for the job and keep going and even if we get knocked down we get back upright to remember that old song I get knocked down I get back up and we keep going forward no matter what because we see the light at the end of the tunnel. Right?But you get on and you get somebody on the phone, you get somebody over email you get somebody on LinkedIn, and you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what their pain points are, all you are is another person talking about how great your company is, and, and nobody cares about your company. Like nobody cares about your product, they care about the problem that they're trying to solve. And if you can't articulate that problem back to them through your persona and industry knowledge, then they're just gonna think you're just another annoying, pass, delete your email, delete your phone, so you've got no credibility, right? Also, it shows, you know, the people at your company that you know, you're just here to basically collect a paycheck, like you don't really care about cyber security professionals, you don't really care about whatever the industry or the people that you're calling on, you're here to pick up a paycheck, work for eight hours, or whatever, three hours, and, and knock off right, so you're not building credibility within your organization, either. You know you don't know anything about the industry and the people and the latest trends and all that stuff. So, it's just like, why? Why would I want to promote you to be a sales rep here at my company? Or if you don't want to get into sales? Like why would I put you in marketing you don't know anything about the industry? Why would I put you in customer success, you don't care about the people that were calling? Right? So, you know, that you got to have all three of these things or else you don't have any credibility? So that's what brings together the Venn diagram to bring you in the middle and, and, you know, gives you the ability to really step up and really show not only to drive, better performance, but to show your company, you know, what you can actually do and so I there's a couple of comments. YB, I don't know if you're still on but let me see here. Anybody has there are some chatters. Wow, there are a lot of chats.David YoungbloodYeah, you're quite popular. Actually. I'm definitely still here. Not like the chiropractors, so no worries there. You've definitely got a lot of interesting thoughts coming from the group. So, we'll start with question one and work up from there. So, the first question is like when you're presenting, you know, overall content and the kind of the three-prong approach, right? How do you balance all three? Right? So how can someone reasonably keep themselves accountable for balancing all three and keeping them on top of mind without losing focus on what matters most?

David DulanyYeah, yeah. So, and this is, it's a long game, I mean, and that's what's, what's really hard about this is you've got a tremendous amount of pressure from your manager and your boss to create results immediately, right? They want that they want the results from yesterday, but in order to become successful in this, this takes time, especially the industry and Persona knowledge. So, so you how do you eat an elephant, you know, one bite at a time, just chunk out 30 minutes a day, there's got to be 30 minutes a day, somewhere within your, you know, program, where you can, you can do some self-education. And I actually, the next part of the, the show here, is I've got some very specific tactics that you can use, there you go, to do this, and thing number one, is, if you don't have this, go get a good pen. And it doesn't have to be this specific brand. But just get a notebook, like a regular old school paper notebook. And I know I'm old and stuff, but there's something about the pen to the paper that connects I think there's a scientific you know, connection there the pen to the paper on a notebook, make this your own personal playbook and throw 30 minutes a day no more, no less at starting to develop these.David YoungbloodAwesome. Yeah, I was just sharing my I was sharing my notebook. Elliot has one as well. It's called the remarkable two. So, it kind of gives you the best of both worlds and allows you to capture notes, and then you can send them electronically, it connects to Wi-Fi. You can send them to yourself as well. But whatever it is, definitely have a good note-taking approach and that is definitely you know, some for some reason for me like just writing it down by hand is that much more memorable, right, and or impactful than just typing something up? So yep, definitely, definitely. So next question we have some people feel that opening is more difficult than closing right in the sales process, what are you? What are your thoughts, David?David DulanyUm, I mean, you know, it's all difficult, right? And that's why they put the expensive alcohol on the top shelf, right? Because you got to earn your way up there. Right? So, all of this stuff is difficult. And that's why especially if you become a Top Producing enterprise sales rep at like a publicly-traded company, you can make a million dollars a year. I'm not, I'm not kidding. And, you know, people that its sales have become very, you know, touchy-feely over the last few years, which is, which is great because it used to be very, you know, testosterone.David YoungbloodNot HR friendly, for sure.

David DulanyYeah, exactly. So, you know, which is great. So, I'm glad that we have empathy now, and we're trying to be more engaging and stuff like that. But the bottom line is if you get good at this, you can, you can really make a big impact. A lot of top-performing salespeople make more than the owners of the company. I know that that's true at Tenbound. A spot, but the point I'm trying to make is to look at this long-term, as a long-term career thing. And going back to that trifecta, dive in because this is where you want to spend time to get good at opening and get good at closing. If you know and I won't rehash it, but if you're really good at all three of those. Y3ou're going to be super successful at both ends.David YoungbloodAbsolutely. All right, we got to get another one. If you're ready. if you want a sip of water or something. You're welcome to this next question. So, the question is from Brian as an SDR when you're feeling unmotivated, right, which happens for all of us, we get it's a roller coaster. It's an emotional roller coaster. It's at times the spiritual world of coaster, the life of sales. So, what are some tactics or best practices, you have to get back on track and get your mindset back into the right place back in the game?David DulanyYeah, I mean, that could be the whole webinar, right? I mean.David YoungbloodI think we got some content for Q1. I just heard a verbal commitment from you to join me in Q1 to talk about the back on track. And that actually probably fits with the new year's new goals and seasonal transition. Sorry about that didn't mean to interrupt.David DulanyThat's okay. I mean, you know, the mindset is huge man. And nobody talks about that, really, I mean, and so, you know, specifically for the person that that wrote that some of the best advice that I've ever gotten, it was actually for, for like a founder entrepreneur group is, how do I become successful as an entrepreneur and this one guy wrote back and said, Just get ripped. And basically, what that means is, we get so bogged down in our computers and our digital life and looking at our phones, that we kind of forget about the physical side that we're actually, you know, a human being that's not like a machine. And, and your moods are going to go up and down. And, and the clients are going to be mean to you, the prospects are going to be mean, you're going to get into a rut, but the only thing that you have control over is, you know, how are you sleeping? How's your physical activity level? Are you exercising enough? Are you eating right? Are you taking care of yourself, especially with the young SDRs you know, they're burning both ends, I mean, they're going out and just get raging all weekend? And then you come back in and you're just like, I gotta call some people you know, you got it you got to remember to take really good care of yourself. The other quick thing is, you basically you got to remember you've got three parts of your mind.David YoungbloodThe ID, the ego.David DulanyWell, it's a different way to think about it is you've got sort of the sage mind, the robot mind, and the monkey mind you know, and so we all have those throughout the day. And the robot mind is just the everyday habitual patterns that you're in and the robots going to do the same thing every day. The monkey mind wants entertainment and new and fun things and clicks right on social media, and just wants a distraction all the time. And your Sage mind is the one that probably made you tune into this with Is your that that executive part, and it's the planning. And it's the goal-setting. And it's the clear focus part of your mind. And you only are in that mind frame for like five to ten percent of the day. And so, when you feel that you're in that sage, open mind, force yourself to do some, you know, that creative, tough activity, the strategy writing the new email, making the really tough phone call, you know, utilizing that time because it closes. And the next thing you know, you get tired, and you're in robot and monkey mind, you know, being distracted. And things just go completely off the rails.David YoungbloodAbsolutely. So that's interesting, I like yours better, it relates better to me, in terms of understanding, especially for this application. Formerly, I've been taught the superego and the ID, right, kind of our, our base core functionality as a being right, and then our wants and needs as a being and then they the executive level of thinking, so yeah, absolutely. Good deal. Another good question. So, what about having a strong work ethic, not lying to prospects, in addition to being authentic and human?David DulanyYeah, I mean, so your work ethic, your work ethic? Right? That's, that's kind of in the that's in the mindset, category, right? Because if you're, if you're, you know, there are all different types of people there, the really, really hardcore, hardcore work ethic type of people are going to be performing more activities, learning more about the industry and persona, taking more sales training classes on their own, you know, staying up all night, sending more emails, making more calls, I mean, they're just gonna, there's just more activity happening, right? And, and especially if you're, if you're, and this is some of the stuff I'm going to give you, but if you're making a ton of mistakes, and you're learning from those and writing them down in your notebook and trying to improve, you're going to run laps around somebody who's, you know, let's their robot and monkey mind takeover. And they're out, you know, on Netflix for half the day. So that work ethic is critical. It's part of the mindset.David YoungbloodYeah, I gotta give my team I like we Netflix should write us a check. We've been unofficially sponsoring Netflix for two days now. In our references to them. So, you're welcome, Netflix? And we'll take the check later. But um, absolutely. So got another good question. Yeah.David DulanyIt's tempting for sure. I mean, especially now that you work from home and just, it made me think the, you know, if you're in a rut, and you're like, I haven't set a meeting for three days, and I can't make another cold call, and I just can't do this anymore. You may need to take a mental health day. And just go leave your computer at home. Don't take any, you know, electronics, just bring your notebook. And just write out, you know, meditate, write out some things like, see how you're feeling, try to get back into that sage mind, you know, when you come back because then you'll see the bigger picture of what you're doing.David YoungbloodPerfect. Perfect. So, self-care again, is definitely a theme year. We got about three minutes left time check wisely. So just following up? Well, now we got two more questions right here for now. But again, if you have questions, everyone, feel free to submit them. Whatever we aren't able to get to today, we will be getting to in a follow-up via LinkedIn, we'll make sure to tag you as well if you'd like. So that'll be coming up shortly, as well as of course, a poll here at the end of the section. But another question for you here, David in a remote world, right, which is kind of the new normal. You know, we're onboarding people without meeting them face to face. How do you capture the ability and or as a leader, drive this mindset to ensure that these new resources are aligned to your company culture, your company values, and ethics?David DulanyYeah, definitely. So that, you know, I tend to look at it, if you're an SDR, you're pretty much on your own. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, the company can give you some training, which is awesome. And so again, take advantage of all the training that they're giving you read all the stuff that comes in from the marketing department on personas and the industry. You know, watch them and this is where work ethic comes in. Right watch all the webinars and the read all the case studies and really, really dive in, you know, lean into the job itself because if you're lucky enough to have a company that has a manager an SDR manager, and some enablement for you really take advantage of that and put it all in. I'm assuming a lot of the time that you don't have that and so you're going to have to make your own destiny here and take advantage of any resources you can get from the company and then make your own playbook basically.David YoungbloodYeah, so you gotta be resourceful. I've also heard that as a theme throughout the event, be resourceful user resourcefulness and initiative to quote another favorite author of mine, Stephen R Covey, right from seven habits, right Go You have a problem, identify it. And you know, he talked about it earlier being part of the solution, not the problem, right? It's not it's one thing to bring a problem to somebody's attention but bring it to the attention with a proposed solution that can be approved or amended, right, making it easier to enable your leadership to make your job and life easier. One more question. From Selena again, hey, Selena, what are your thoughts on helping SDRs learn to prioritize?David DulanyYeah, okay, so, you know, essentially, you can kind of reverse engineer the result that you're looking for. So, you're trying to set up a meeting or set up an appointment, what are all the steps that go into actually doing that, and, and just make a list, there's probably like, four or five things that you have to do in order to do that. And then I'll just challenge you that spend more time on that list that you made. Specifically doing those activities. And, and, you know, bringing in the knowledge and skills that you're learning and the other two quadrants, writing down what's working and what's not. And then doing more and more and more, until, you know, you start to see better results.David YoungbloodGot it. Awesome.David DulanyShiny objects are everywhere, your monkey mind wants to pursue them. And the best people can ignore them for longer than most of us and get a lot more done.David YoungbloodMitigate the monkey mind for alliteration as a takeaway. Got it? I'll be right in that town.David DulanyYB, I had some specific tactics that people can take away and I will post them on SlideShare. And you know, we'll have the recording. So, if anybody wants to dive in further, and dive in, I didn't realize the time would go by so fast. So, I'm happy to jump on further and dive into this.David YoungbloodNow. That's, that's quite alright. You know, it's, this is probably the best I've done it, cutting it off at the time. And I'm still late so. But thank you very much for putting that to SlideShare and making sure that we can get that to everyone. And thank you again, so much for joining us in our inaugural first-ever edition of Accelerate 2021 Day two, here with David Dulany of Tenbound.What we'll do now is again, as we've been doing transition to a poll. Go ahead and jump into the lobby booth, you know, get engaged network, talk to each other, or go catch up on LinkedIn for a little bit, but we'll see you all back here in about three minutes with our next and final session for Accelerate 2021. Thanks so much.

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David Dulany - The Amazing SDR Trifecta | Accelerate 2021

<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate. Today, we’ll run through Tito Bohrt, CEO, AltiSales' talk on ‘From cold call to closed - Strategies, tactics, and metrics to master the outbound sales funnel.’

<h2>Transcript</h2>David YoungbloodWe did it. We're back. Hey, everyone, welcome back. Hopefully, you had a good break. Join us in the booth, ask some great questions, and met some great people. You should also use that time to network professionally with everybody else here, right, other folks with similar interests, following and talking and seeing similar things. So do absolutely leverage just on your professional network myself to hit me up on LinkedIn. Happy to have a chat. But next. We are very, very excited to announce our next speaker who's promised us a very interactive and exciting session. The man, the myth, the legend, Tito Bohrt, who is as many of you know, the CEO at AltiSales, a company focused on building outbound SDR teams, right. So, he spent the last 10 years building over 50 sales teams from scratch, right? So, he's hired and trained, over 100 individual sales reps and top performers. He's, he's a blogger, a professional blogger, right or semiprofessional blogger, however you want to portray that at sales hacker and on LinkedIn. He's also a mentor at the alchemist accelerator in San Francisco, a public speaker for sales events such as outreaches unleash, and an angel investor in b2b SaaS startups, also, most recently, a celebrity guest speaker here at Accelerate sponsored by Outplay here in 2021. So, with no further ado, we'll bring him on stage. The one the only Tito Bohrt.Tito BohrtAwesome. Hello, everybody seems like my camera went off for a second there. But I'm excited to be here. And we are going to make this session fun interactive, we're going to be covering as much ground as we can. So, I'm going to go a little bit fast on should be a little fun, David.David YoungbloodAwesome. Well, the stage is yours.Tito BohrtAwesome. So, as you know from the top of the conversation today, we're going to talk from a cold call to a closed one. I'm going to talk about strategies, tactics, and metrics to master the outbound sales funnel, I'm going to help you guys understand where the world is going when it comes to outbound. And for that, I'm going to be sharing all sorts of tidbits of information. I'm going to start probably with a quick PowerPoint. But then we can dive into like life dashboards, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and how to work in different areas. What I really want from this session is I want people to chime in, I want people to participate. I want people to ask questions, and leave comments. Regardless of if it's the Q&amp;A or the chat, do me a favor and participate. So, the first thing I want to talk about is that I think sales is broken. Like too many companies are doing this wrong. Too many companies are hiring SDRs right out of college with zero experience, or they're putting them in a role where they're asking them to do too many things that are unfamiliar with, like, I am seeing my younger brother's friends graduate college, and what are they used to on a daily basis. They never pick up the phone, they don't even call their friends, their mom, or their girlfriends. When they write anything, it's a five-page essay, they're always trying to figure out how do I make it longer? How do I increase the font from 12 to 12.2? So, the professor doesn't realize that I'm trying to increase my wording. And how do I like, you know, add as much fluff as possible.And then we hire those same people. And we put them in a role where we're like, not only you're going to be making cold calls and sending emails, but the cold calls, you may have to be short and to the point and so do the emails. And by the way, you need to learn, Outplay and Lusha and Lead IQ and Zoominfo and Vidyard on LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and by the way, research all your data, copy, paste a bunch of stuff, put it in a place and split your time in a beautiful way where everybody is, where you are being hyper-productive. So, I'm gonna share screens to highlight what we are expecting. Let's see screen sharing. There we go. This is what we're expecting from our SDRs. Right, a million tasks.Here's your pie chart, of how you split your time during the day, please go do good work on what happens, that doesn't happen. This happens. These sorts of emails that we all get, especially if you're an executive, you're getting these emails, many times. Hopefully, they're not as horrible as this is, but there's no spacing between paragraphs, two bullet points are too far indented. There's bolding for no reason there's a vertical line of the subject line two dots on a question like that makes no sense. No image in the signature, no logo, no phase, nothing. What the hell like this makes no sense to me. So, what I want to run you guys through is what is future self-development? How are we going to succeed? And here's what that will look like. Step number one, you're going to get a phone call. You look at your phone, you're like who the hell is calling me from Florida. You're probably not going to pick up. So, what happens a few days later or a few hours later. Here's what happens a few hours later, if you're running a world-class SDR team, come on screen share again, you're scrolling through LinkedIn, you're going through your day. And suddenly as a prospect, you see an ad. And the ad is personalized to your company. So, if you were working for IBM, you would be seeing this ad from AltiSales, it says IBM is gonna be a world-class SDR team. And by the way, the top part is also personalized. It says there are hundreds of companies out there that need solutions from IBM, but they aren't coming to your website. Even the bottom it says IBM's revenue machine is about to take off, personalize, personalized Ad, okay, cool, good loads of companies not doing that. But what do you think is gonna happen? Nobody's gonna pay attention. They're not going to click a lot. Why? Because they never do. So, what's gonna happen, you're gonna call them again, we're gonna see again, your number from Florida a few days later, they're gonna be like, I'm not gonna pick up so a few days later again, or a few hours later, you're gonna perhaps send him an email, it's or the email we're gonna send them an email, the email is gonna be personalized. I'm here what I'm bringing is different templates from different examples, just so you guys understand that this is in particular to AltiSales. But it should look something like this right? Happy Thursday brand. They called you this number congrats on your new class. This is to a University College Board says you admit X number applicants blah, blah, blah blah, like, what I've done here is I've color-coded this template. So, you'll understand certain parts of this template are exactly what I called a template, and certain parts are variable. If you're using a good sales engagement tool, the sales engagement tool allows you to put nice variables in there. That's what you should be doing. The real question, though, is okay, how am I going to find these variables? How am I gonna get the right information? All you really got to do is be diligent with your process. I said too many SDRs are being tasked with too many things. So, this is a good client experience. This is what I want to receive as a client. But how do I execute as an SDR? Well, let's make it even more complex. Imagine that this email also gets ignored. Okay, you call them again, finally, they pick up they say hello, this is Brent. I'll say, Brent. This is Tito. I'm calling from XYZ company, do you have two minutes. He's like, no, no, dude, I can't. I'm super busy. You can go send him a connect request on LinkedIn and tried to connect. You're starting to see the interplay. What if they don't?What if they don't pick up the phone? Well, you don't want to let them know you call so maybe you send another email or another you send a LinkedIn request or a LinkedIn message with a message like this right? Hey, I sent you an email I almost called you blah blah the subject line of the email was x by the way, love your experience this previous company yours have a recommendation for this person, blah, blah, blah. I see you speak German Grusse. What I'm trying to take you guys through is what the future looks like for sales development. Sales development is not let’s grab a template and blast the hell out of it unless grab, connect and sell or Orem or cold call the hell out everybody. The future of sales development is as a prospect, feeling excited about people reaching out to me and that looking very, very professional. So, calls, emails, LinkedIn ads, I guess what if you were running ads, you can even text your clients, if you text them, text them from your cell phone, not from a platform. Why? Because you want, I message to work. You're going to continue to improve and evolve the way that you're doing things. So, there's a really good example Hey, a few people in your team clicked on the ad that we're displaying it says Domino's Pizza, right? Domino's. Let's talk about API security, blah, blah, blah, I'm from this company. And then some people might respond. So, I'm going to take a quick break there. Um, to bring David back on the screen. And, you know, what are you thinking about this approach? You know, do we have any questions from the audience so far?David YoungbloodHello, yeah, back. Make sure you do your sound-check. Good. Yeah. That is the takeaway that I got from it, right, and a word in me pointing this out in chat is evolving, it's time to evolve. It's time to change and level up the game, right? A new way to go about it. Because what's old is not working. It's broken. It's outdated, antiquated, and not effective, ultimately. In a nutshell.Correct. I agree. Now, the most common question I get here David is okay, Tito, I get it. We can have all but everybody saying that but it's so much work, dude. Like I'm an SDR I'm finding my leads. I'm doing my stuff like I don't have time. You're telling me I gotta make 50 to $100 a day you want me to send 50 to 100 emails you want me to research, you want me to personalize you want me to text you want me to? So, like how am I gonna ever do that?David YoungbloodYeah, absolutely. And then like the not just what you need to do, but how you're gonna go about it. Right? Is it we get the why, but the how you're gonna go about it's definitely a challenge for a lot of folks to have to answer? We do have a question if you're ready for one as well.Tito BohrtYes, sure.David YoungbloodSo, this one's kind of a this or that approach, right? So, I message versus platform messaging. What's your take?Tito BohrtI prefer i-messaging because it feels more human, rather than the platform messaging, which usually whenever you're messaging from a platform, it will show up as a text message, not like an iMessage. So not everybody has an iPhone. But if you're reaching out to, you know, VP, Director, C level executives, those executives usually have money and usually buy expensive phones doesn't mean that everybody's gonna buy an iPhone, but the iPhone tends to have some correlation with wealth. Like, the people with a lot of money have iPhones. So, when you start i-messaging, they will see you, and you'll stand out from the crowd. That's the only thing I'll say,David YoungbloodOkay. Gotcha way to differentiate yourself, in addition to the right message, in addition to your other approaches, but differentiation can be as much as the device you're using. Right?Tito BohrtCorrect. Okay, so I want to go back to tell people how we're going to operationalize this to excellence. It's telling me I can't present while questions are being shown.David YoungbloodYep, here you go. I just stopped doing that part. And back to you.‍

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<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate. Today, we’ll run through Kris Rudeegraap, CEO, Sendoso's talk on 'Mastering the Art of Revenue Impact.'

<h1>Transcript</h1>David YoungbloodWe have a very, very exciting kickoff to day two of accelerate, you know, someone who likely needs a little to no introduction. You know, Kris Rudeegraap, how I like to say it. And it's less than approved by Kris himself. So just so you know. But he's the co-founder and the CEO of a little company called Sendoso. Right. So, you've probably heard of them. If you haven't done the leading sending platform, Kris has actually made has had more than a decade of sales experience. And he spent time at companies like talk desk, Yap stone, and pakora. Right. So, during that time, we actually discovered that creating a meaningful engagement right through direct mail and gifting was actually an effective way to drive demand. So, increase and increase sales, right, which helped inspire the idea for Sendoso of itself. So, he's that he's actually a California native and a CSU alumnus. I love Him. And He currently resides there in the Bay Area, so wouldn't know more about him. Let's talk to him. And with him Well, with that, we'll bring Kris to the stage. Here we go. And believe he can join us now. Hello, Kris. Good morning.Kris RudeegraapGood morning. Thank you for having me, David.David YoungbloodYeah, thanks for joining, you know, you're under no pressure. But you're Speaker One on day two of our inaugural event accelerate. And we have a little kind of, you know, sidebar slash maybe wager going on about day two versus day one speaker lineup. So, no pressure at all, truly. But with that, I'll turn it over to you. And today, obviously, we're talking about mastering the art of revenue impact, which is a very important topic that we're all painfully and we're thankfully aware of this time of year. So, in the year, and the fiscal, New year, new quotas, all that fun stuff. So, with that, I get I will truly shut up now and turn it over to you.Kris RudeegraapThank you so much excited to kick things off today. It's a great, fun-filled day with a lot of awesome speakers. So, I will kick things off, and jump into my presentation here. So let me look like I got to share my screen and get things started. All right. Perfect. So, we're talking about mastering the art of revenue impact. And specifically, I want to get into details on really the changing landscape of the sales development world. And so, with that, let's kick things off. And I will really quickly just give you a little bit more context. David, I appreciate your introduction. That was perfect. But I'll give you some context in terms of why I started Sendoso. So, two, so I started out Sendoso about five years ago, based on my personal needs. And I really spent a decade in sales prior to starting Sendoso. So, and like many of you, AES or SDRs, on this webinar, I was in your shoes, I had to prospect meetings, close deals, and break into new accounts. And I decided I wanted to get more creative with breaking through the noise. And so, I found myself starting to write handwritten notes, I grab swag and send it out, I'd find quirky gifts off of Amazon and send it out all things that were personalized the, to the prospect. And it worked really, really well. It was just manual and time-consuming. And so, I had this epiphany of, hey, why isn't there a platform or I can just click a button inside of Salesforce. And voila, things are sent and tracked and expensed. And that was my precipice for starting Sendoso And that's what gave me the inspiration to say hey, I'm going to start.Sendoso helps other sales professionals, you know, breakthrough this noise and be more personal and fast forward a little bit. Sendoso is about 500 employees now we've raised about 160 million in funding 10s of 1000s of users we've helped sales marketers, customers, service folks, and HR individuals across the entire world send millions of packages. So really exciting time. wanted to give you a little fun fact about me personally so you can get to know me. So, my dog, I have a miniature golden doodle named Stella. She's my little best buddy. She's actually our chief marketing officer, so you actually might hear her barking today. And I also want to be a pro-croquet player. For anyone who's ever played croquet. It's a super fun sport that you can play on a little small little lawn. You know, when it's summertime you'll find me outside playing that game. And then lastly, I helped my Guy Fieri famous so if you ever watch The Triple D or drivers dives and dragons on Food Network more than a decade ago, I worked with him on a Myspace promotional program where we got a ton of votes for him as he was trying to be competing on America's Next Top food chef. So fun little fact, and one of my first entrepreneurial endeavors was a Myspace marketing company of all things. Alright, let's get into this. So, what are we talking about today, we first want to talk about the current buying landscape? And really get into some details on, you know, what's happening today. We also are going to jump into the future of sales development, I want to talk about some of the things that I'm seeing emerge for SDRs. We're going to talk about turning traditional into next-level outreach. And then lastly, we're gonna really focus on the revenue impact of personalization and talk more about how you can get good at personalizing. Alright, so first off, let's start off with where we are today. And so, first, I want to really get into that b2b buyers have, you know, tuned out, there's a lot of digital noise going on. And today's little level of interconnectedness is unprecedented. And it really creates unique, unpredictable b2b buying behavior. And so SDRs messaging could get lost in the sales funnel. And so, what are you doing to really stand out, so that you can get in front of your buyers? And really quickly, I want to take a step back, before we get into what's next, and really look at a couple of different avenues, one with email marketing, so email marketing emerged, you know, way back in the 90s. And you can see that back way back when, you know, Hotmail was popular, you know, there was stats that, you know, the open rates were huge and 400 emails through, were generating 13 million in revenue. Can you imagine that sending 14 million are sending 400 emails and generating that much revenue? So, it was a channel that was, you know, early on and exploded. And back in 2001, we saw that there were about 600 billion emails sent now there are over 300 trillion emails sent. So that's something to consider. The other thing is digital marketing and advertising. So that has also continued to evolve as well. And way back in the 90s, you saw click rates in the 50% plus rate. Now we're seeing hundreds of billions about 450 billion in ad spend with a quarter of a percent of click-through rates. So, times are changing what worked 10 years ago, doesn't mean it's going to work today. So, what are you doing to adapt and evolve? And I think that's really what I want to focus on today. The other thing that's important to consider is we are seeing a shift in b2b buying behavior. And over the next several years, digital actual digital interaction between buyers and prospects will break the traditional sales model. So, we're gonna see more and more digital selling. And with that, SDR outreach still deeds being broad, cold outreach, quantity over quality, and impersonal interactions. So how do we evolve the sales development landscape, because b2b Buying is increasingly unpredictable? There also, you can no longer use our edge can be impersonal, you have to personalize it. and relationship building has always been important.But it's even more important today. And we believe that SDRs play a critical role in building the relationship very first in the top funnel. And that's one thing that will remain constant is really how SDRs can really create meaningful connections in the sales process, and ultimately, get creative to cut through the noise and capture people's attention. So, let's talk a little bit more about the future of sales development. And this is what really gets me excited. So, the sales development playbook that SDRs have been using has changed in order to increase response rates, book meetings, and make a revenue impact SDRs have to evolve their approach. And so different things are happening right now there's an emergence of more tools, there's an emergence of more competitors, there's an emergence of more noise. And so, with that, we have to really think about the individual and the prospect and with so what we're seeing is, it's time to evolve, you've got to understand how the changing landscape is happening, you also have to work on how you get connected to that prospect. And so, giving a significant part of the prospecting efforts in really creating that meaningful relationship. And so, what I want to do is talk about how you can really leverage sending to really think about out-of-the-box ways to create highly personalized engagement. And so, with sending and sending out gifts and direct mail and swag and handwritten notes, you can really think about how do you drive impact overactivity? And I think years and years ago Go, it was all about activity. And I still see some SDR leaders really focused on the more activity, the better. And really what we preach here at Sendoso, we really see some of the best SDR teams out there. They're focused on quality over quantity. And so really looking at how each touchpoint should matter, and how do you capture that attention. The other thing that is extremely important in today's world is getting creative. Creativity is a competitive advantage. And how do you establish that wow factor? When we're interviewing for SDRs? Here we actually interview how creative an SDR can be. There are questions that we ask, and we really look at thinking about how you get creative, it's one of those skills that people can learn. That's something that it's harder to automate creativity. And it's something that if you can get good at creativity, you can use that in your outreach. I even find myself looking at sales and seeing, hey, how do you time block for creativity? How are you learning to be better and get more creative? And so that's one of those areas where if I was an SDR, I would focus more of my time on getting better at being creative. The other thing to focus on too, is just the traditional approach, and how do we look at more of a human-first approach to personalization, and not just a persona approach? And so, I'll get into that in just a second. All right, so let's really talk about turning traditional into next-level outreach.Kris RudeegraapSo, what do I mean by that? I really mean that, how do we look at personalization and being thoughtful and turning traditional outreach. So, by considering who your prospect is and what they care about, you can really surprise and delight them. And so, with personalization, you got to think about who they are, what do they care about? What are they doing today? You know, I think that the pandemic was a great example where people all of a sudden, started working from home. So how do you personalize that? And how do you adapt to that, and so with, with that, you know, we're seeing that there are different ways that you can use gifting to break through this noise and be more personal, you can bolster cold outreach with E gifts that engage a prospect. The nice thing about the gifts is, are you can send them instantly to someone's email address.And that provides you with a means to be able to create a really instant personal interaction, you can also use, you know, the ability to send them a gift choice where they can decide what they want to get, and really create a more personal impact. That way. You can follow up with physical gifts that impress using address confirmation to gather their address, and then handwritten notes are again, a time tried and true way for you to feel more personal when you send that out. If you're looking to look at more and more ways on how you can get personal and how you can drive personalization, I'd highly recommend checking out flip the script.co that Collin has an amazing series of a lot of information on really, how you do how should you think about personalization throughout the entire SDR experience. So again, that's flip the script.co. And I'd definitely recommend checking that out if you want to learn more and more on how to get personal and how to personalize. Alright, so the next thing I wanted to do is dive into more about how you can personalize with gifting. And I think this is really where my success and sales came from. This also is where you know, for those of you who are not yet integrating gifting into your outreach, these are some of the tips and tricks that I would share that are very quick and easy to implement. So, one is really thinking about things like E gifts. Again, you can send there are e-gifts that are worldwide. So, you can really send these to anyone in the world. There are direct options where you can send things like cupcakes and flowers and different things that are going to be really personalized to a location. You can think about branded items. So branded swag, boxes, mailers, handwritten notes. And then one of my favorites is highly personalized things from Amazon. And so, this is one of the things that worked very, very well, back when I was in sales about five years ago, because I would be on a call, I would hear a dog bark and I go and find something on Amazon that would reference you know that that conversation or something personal for that prospect. What we've done is we've innovated that one level up in terms of Sendoso and having integration with Amazon so that when you find that, you know, the creative, personalized item from Amazon, instead of sending from amazon it actually goes to our warehouse. It's repackaged with the handrail. It is noted and sent out all tracked through your sales tools like CRMs, like Salesforce, and also pulling from your account balance so you can track it and use that money that's allocated to you can spend against. So that's one of my favorite areas. And the nice thing about that is it as opposed to coming directly from Amazon, where it's coming in an Amazon box with a very unperson realized feeling, we completely re-personalize the gift. And in my opinion, the unboxing experience can be just as important as the gift itself at times. So, you really want to make sure you're focused on not just the gift inside the box. But what is the box itself when you open the box? What do you see and really being able to put time and effort into the entire experience is really going to drive even better results for you? Alright, so the next thing I want to talk about is how you create more of a repeatable process. So, when you're doing gifting in direct mail on your own, it can feel very weird, and without a sending platform like Sendoso. So, it can feel like you're putting in a lot of effort. And it can actually be very timely, timing consuming. And so, as an SDR you really want to make sure you can be efficient, strategic, effective, and also very repeatable. And so, this is where integrating a tool like Sendoso, so into your sales engagement process can really be something that allows you to be more effective, and ultimately not have to think about when to send, but focus your time on what to send, and what's the note that should be associated with this. So you so really what, what our team does, and what we've seen other really, you know, modern forward-thinking companies do is you really think about the buying experience from start to finish from, you know, top of the funnel, whether it's from marketing, driving inbound leads, or whether it's SDRs, and then to AES and into CSMs and account managers.

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Kris Rudeegraap - Mastering the Art of Revenue Impact | Accelerate 2021

<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate. Today, we’ll run through Heidi Solomon (Founder, GirlzWhoSell and VP Sales, VXI Global Solutions) and Ashleigh Early's (Sales Coach and Consultant, The Other Sales Coach) talk on “Diversity hiring and closing the gender gap in sales."

<h1>Transcript</h1>David YoungbloodIt says connecting. We're doing it. We're getting it. Oh, there we go, all good to go. Excellent. We're here we did it, we made it back yet to another session that just started. So, give a couple of folks, a few more moments to join us. We're going to send out a team can you make sure to get something into the feed? Alert them, and get folks to join us. But um, you know, really, you know, this one's particularly interesting to me, for a couple of reasons. But one, I'm kind of, I'm just gonna go a little bit, I introduce you two if I'm not mistaken, right.Heidi Solomon OrlickYou did.David YoungbloodActually, I met both of them and had amazing conversations with both Ashleigh and Heidi. And I was like, this is a no-brainer, the two of them should meet. And then fast forward a few months. And here they are, you know, cohosting in a virtual Summit here in Accelerate 2021. And we're talking about a very, very important topic, right? As far as, you know, having fun and playing and having a good time. That's all great. But we definitely want your feedback, your input, and this to be engaging for you all as well in the audience when we're talking about diversity hiring and closing the gender gap in sales because it's historically a very one-sided field. So, I'm definitely interested, I'm going to be sitting back and learning taking notes. But with that said, Heidi, and Ashleigh, if you could both provide the audience with a little bit more about each of you and your respective organizations. And I'll leave it to you.Heidi Solomon OrlickThat sounds great. Ashleigh, you want to kick it off.Ashleigh EarlyWhy not? All right. So, hello everyone. A quick note, we did drop a poll. So please tell us basically just what your current role is, you want to make sure we're making this as relevant as possible to literally who actually took their time to invest their morning, their afternoon, or evening, whatever with us today. So please, please, please, if you haven't taken that yet, please take it. That's great information for us. My name is Ashleigh Early. I am the CEO and founder of the Other Side of Sales as well as a sales consultant coach and cheerleader. I work as a fractional head of sales for the Duckbill group, which is an AWS Bill consulting firm as well as with a bunch of different companies on short term projects, helping their teams scale, but my passion is really getting more people into sales and making B2B sales culture truly inclusive so everyone can thrive. So new episodes dropped every other Thursday, theothersideofsales.com. Pick your podcast catcher, it's exclusive - interviews with amazing sales pros that you should be watching to show that success in sales can look and sound like whatever you look and sound like if you're willing to put in the work and if you're willing to fight for a healthy environment to work in. So super excited. It's funny David mentioned Heidi. Heidi and I have been like circling each other on LinkedIn for like two years because we know we share a lot of these same passions. So, I'm this is super exciting on a lot of different levels to be here today. And Heidi, I'll kick it over to you and everything about 'GirlzWhoSell.'Heidi Solomon OrlickOh, thank you, Ashleigh, you're so amazing. And David, thanks for being an incredible dot connector. And I want to also just do a shout-out to Elliott Garcia, who's been phenomenally supportive. So, thanks to the entire accelerate team for having me here today. And allowing us to talk about a subject that like you David is incredibly dear to my heart. In my day job, I'm Vice President of Global Sales for VSI Global Solutions. I've spent over 30 years, maybe started before some of you were born in business-to-business sales. And if you think it's male-dominated now, you should have seen it 30 years ago, fast forward 30 you know, plus years and really began to give a lot of thought to how to democratize, democratize professional sales and where and so I founded GirlzWhoSell in the latter part of 2020. We officially kicked off this year. So, we're still a scrappy, bootstrapped startup, but the response and reaction to what we're doing are incredible and our mission is to not only close the gender gap in business-to-business sales but to also build the largest pipeline of diverse early-stage female sales talent position sales as a viable career option for everyone. So, while I'm really excited here to be talking about diversity hiring, to be honest, I'm looking forward to the day that we can just be talking about hiring and that diversity becomes more normalized. And is not something that we have to actually you know, have sessions on. So, you know that that in order to, you know, anyway, so that's it. So, Ashleigh, what do we have any results for our poll?Ashleigh EarlyYeah, so it looks like we have a good mix, we have a few, I'd say we're about 1/3 sales directors head of sales, about two-thirds, kind of individual contributors. So AE, SDRs, and I picked up from marketing and some other ancillary, but crucial roles on the team, which is super exciting. So great, great, great mix about one-third, two-thirds, ballpark math.Heidi Solomon OrlickSo, I know actually, we kind of had an agenda, we wanted to talk about three things today. And I'm going to let you kind of lead the conversation, but one was sourcing strategies, interview techniques, and then some decision criteria. And we'd like to dig into each of those things. And our goal is to really give you some actionable things that you can take with you and deploy into your organization. So, Ashleigh, why don't you take it away and kick it off with sourcing?Ashleigh EarlyYeah, I think I start with kind of even taking it a step further back in terms of the kind of like, why this is even important in the first place. The Great Recession is happening, the great reshuffling is happening. I really think talent acquisition and retention is going to be one of the major sticking points for sales teams, especially in Q1. Y'all thought Q4 was a rough wait for January, it's going to be interesting, on LinkedIn, some of the shufflings is going to be happening, and more and more people I'm talking to you today, job seekers, and especially even people who've been in their careers, 5, 10 years, 10, 15 years, 20 years, they're no longer willing to put up with unhealthy work environments. So being able to demonstrate constructive DEI policies in your interview process is a major recruiting tool to make sure you're not only getting the right talent, but the right talent wants to work for you. So, DEI is something that'll actually help you attract talent. And I'll help you keep it on board, as well as make sure you're getting the right people because let's be honest, you need a diverse sales team because your buyers are diverse. And if you don't have that diversity of thought on your team, you're talking about the react, you're not gonna be able to react in a positive and profitable way to the market going upside down, which we all know it does about every 12 months now. So just why this is important in the first place. This is key to success in 2022. And beyond these aren't DEI strategies are no longer a nice to have. They are table stakes. And it's not just policy, it's action. And the best way to start showing action is in the three things that we're going to talk about today sourcing the interview process and your decision criteria.Heidi Solomon OrlickYeah, and if I can only add, thanks for doing that. And I, you know, one of the things that you and I had talked a lot about today is that you know, and we actually did a LinkedIn poll. And the results were not surprising maybe but reinforce the fact that diversity and equity and inclusion have become more and more important in terms of the decision-making criteria used to select and commit to a job with an organization. In fact, it even scored way higher than compensation in terms of what was important in some of the younger generations in particular, as we look to source, you know, millennials and Gen Zs that are coming up the pipeline, and, and moving from an early-stage talent into management. They're voting with their wallets. Right. I mean, they're, they're, you know, they're looking for organizations that are not only talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion but are living it, particularly from an organizational standpoint. So, yeah.Ashleigh EarlyPerfect. Let's talk about how to live in.Heidi Solomon OrlickGotta live it.Ashleigh EarlySo, let's talk about how we can do that. So, the first way you can live kind of actual DEI strategies is to take a look at how you're sourcing, kind of the TLDR. The too long didn't read, for those of you who are credits for this section is stop relying on LinkedIn. Stop. LinkedIn is going to be predominantly white, college-educated, and male now that's changing, it's better. But really, realistically, that's going to be the that's going to be a lot of the candidates that you're going to get, it's going to skew that way you cannot rely on LinkedIn. So given that you want the widest most diverse talent pool possible, you have to start getting creative and figure out other ways to source talent. So, there are a lot of different ways that you can do that. Obviously, there's using your own internal referrals, but referrals tend to only amplify what you already have. So, if you're doing good with diversity, hit up everyone in your team and people are willing to refer people to where you work that's a big positive for both the company and the employees. So, referrals are always great, but sometimes, you know, you need to improve diversity, or you haven't been able to nail that yet. So where do you get that applicant pool? A couple of different things you can look at one of the big things that Heidi and I kind of did thinking about this is you have to partner with groups that are trying to change this. So, we're going to rattle off a bunch of names. I'm going to do a LinkedIn post right after this. So come find me. I'll hyperlink all of these. But the part with groups. We're trying to change this. So off the top of my head, obviously, huh? Girls who sell is a fantastic group. If you're not familiar, please do go check them out.There are also sales for the culture, which is for black sales pros, one of my cohosts from other side of sales, Brian is deeply involved with them? There's Girls Club, which does not with a Z with an S, they do some great mentorship and training. There's and then there are a couple of other groups that are not sales. specific.Heidi Solomon OrlickSistas in sales with Chantal George.

Ashleigh EarlyYeah, good question. And I'll say you'd be surprised how many diversity efforts start with individual contributors more often than not, I think they start with ICS. And they start with leadership. And it starts by just asking the question. So, and it's especially helpful if I, in my experience, I found it's especially powerful if you go to HR and ask what the policies are if the policies don't directly affect you. So, in my example, earlier about trans policies, I worked for a company a few years ago, and they were just started changing the rules in California and stuff like that. So I went to HR, I was like, hey, out of curiosity, how are we? What's our company's plan for this new legislature that says you have to cover these things? Are they currently covered by our policies or not? And our HR department had no clue. They're like, oh, I don't know. Um, two weeks later, we had a company-issued a public statement about that, hey, they actually are covered by our current policies already. Yay. And we're setting up this additional benefit that if anyone needs it, there's additional like, something you can expense or will support or something like that? It's and they told me it started with me; they just honestly didn't know. They just missed it. They just hadn't gotten the memo yet. So, we just came up and asked, did a lot. The other thing I think ICs can do is just ask to see copies of the policies, a lot of DEI policies start off as, oh, well, we do unload, we're gonna do unconscious bias training. Okay, well, where's that written? How often? Is it done? Who does it? Is it managers? Or is it everybody? You know, going through those things? Just ask, what's the written policy? Is there one? Can I help write one? Or can I, you know, what can I do to help drive these things? Can I find other things to suggest stuff like that, but just asking the question, honestly, is 80% of the battle, and then if nothing happens, get somebody else to ask it. And then just kind of slowly creates this little bit of momentum in the company?David YoungbloodSqueaky wheel basically?Heidi Solomon OrlickYeah. Well, let me just add, the only thing I want to add to that, and that's all really good. Feedback is get involved, you know, and definitely, if you see ads that are out there that are not aligned, provide feedback to your HR recruiting managers. The one thing that I will also encourage is if your organization has ERGs in or if they don't start one, so whether it's for you know, any, any kind of diverse group, it's important to be sure that the voices within the organization are heard. And I think ERGs are a great way to create safe spaces and encourage diversity within your company. So be sure you get involved.Ashleigh EarlyI'll say this too. And I've worked at a lot of companies that were big enough to have ERGs I work at I work with a company right now, that's 10 people doesn't really make much sense to have an ERG of two women. But one of the things that I found you can do is you can say, hey, we don't have an ERG, yet we're not big enough, I get it no big deal with the company funding my membership in an organization that does provide a lot of the same services. So, asking your company, hey, because you can't do this, would you be willing to fund this and membership in some of these groups is not a lot, a lot. Most managers are willing to be like, oh, yeah, I'll totally I will totally fund you doing that, because there's a professional development angle to it, too. So, it's tax-deductible. So, like, ask your managers for stuff like that, if you can't, ERG is preferable. Second, the best is getting the company if they can't do an erg to fund you to join a group where you can get a lot of the same support you would get just with a bunch of people who don't work at your company.David YoungbloodPerfect. Perfect. Thank you both. Moving along here. Next question. So, what is your approach or recommendation to understanding the perspectives of colleagues from different backgrounds? Right? How do you go about initiating the conversation, you know, tactfully tastefully, but also from a point of genuine interest in learning?Heidi Solomon OrlickYeah, and I think that's the important place is to come from a genuine interest and just be real about the fact that you don't have all the answers, and that you may actually make some mistakes around along the way, right. But having the conversations and stuff Already in conversations with individuals that are different from you, or the way bridges are built-in and how they're mended. And so, I would just encourage you to have those private conversations. The other thing is, is you need to get yourself educated is not the responsibility of the diverse groups within your company, you know, within your organization or in your life to educate you, even though it's great to ask the questions and have the conversations. The other thing you need to do is commit to getting yourself educated so that you can have more valuable content and meaningful conversations.David YoungbloodPerfect. Anything else to add Ashleigh?Ashleigh EarlyOh, you kind of nailed that. No, honestly, it really comes down to its having grace. It's owning your own education, not insisting on waiting and waiting on others to educate you. The other thing I'll say is to own up when you screw up. One of the most powerful interactions I had in 2020 was I was at a happy hour. And I made a comment, I made a comment, a comment that was accidentally insensitive. I was just trying to find commonality, but it is making commonality, I diminish the other person accidentally, they called me on it. And this was a person, this was a woman of color. And we're talking about hair. And she called me on it. I was like, just it was just like, whoops, which was totally me. And she's now a dear, dear friend of mine, actually. And she told me afterward, that just seeing me acknowledge what I did know what I did wrong, and make that change that quickly, she said, gave her hope, during a time when she felt like she was screaming at people all day, every day on these topics, and no one was listening. So just acknowledging and showing that change can be not just good for you. But this is the discussion and the thoughts on DEI, like the kind of like Heidi said at the very beginning of this, I hope that we can stop having these conversations. It's kind of like going to a doctor, I hope I never have to go to the doctor again. I hope we can stop having these conversations someday. But the way there is with a million tiny moments, these aren't going to be big Eurekas. It's going to be a million tiny things. And us insisting on change, while allowing people to be human, which is a really hard balance to strike. So, when it comes to understanding perspective, it's gotten curious, be genuine owner and education and own up when you screw up because you will.David YoungbloodPerfect. Alright, just a couple more left, and I will get through them. We're trying to do this quickly as possible, do one on one this time. So, we'll start with you this time, Ashleigh, what is according to you the most difficult part of implementing a DEI program?Ashleigh EarlyWell, this is what we've always done. It's the status quo. It's fighting the status quo is always the hardest thing. So, you're working with a sales leader who has 20, 30, or 40 years of experience. And they've always sourced this way they've always interviewed this way. They've got their bomb set of interview questions. And all of a sudden, they realize, wow, why is my sales floor a bunch of, you know, why is my sales floor exclusively this one race and predominately this one gender. I mean, they're doing well, but it's not. We know it's not sustainable. And it just is really hard to break that thought pattern of this has worked before, but it might not work going forward, or the way that it works is not something that is actually sustainable. 30 years into the future.Heidi Solomon OrlickCan I add one more, I'm sorry, Ashleigh. Go ahead.Ashleigh EarlyYeah, that's hard. But I find that honestly in my experience, I found if I run into someone who is kind of that status quo mindset, I stopped trying to convince them, I give them a shot or two, I'll give them a couple of points. I'll try and probe, I'll try and do a challenge or question and be like, hey, let's try and challenge these assumptions a little bit. But I don't waste a lot of time on it, I will go and work on other members of the organization and try and kind of drown them out with other opinions. If we need to get a lot of things on board, if it's a one-person and they're just being a roadblock, I honestly stopped working with the organization. And that kind of sucks. But I just think that those dinosaurs, they're going to go the way of the dinosaurs eventually. And I'd rather amplify other voices of people who aren't getting it right. Then waste my time trying to get this one person to change. Now I'm going to go find five people and teach them how to yell.David YoungbloodHeidi, what was?Heidi Solomon OrlickYeah, David, the only thing that I would add is it for me one of the biggest challenges is that organizations talk about their commitment to diversity and equity inclusion, but they actually don't budget to solve it. And so, that is one thing that I would really encourage corporations to do is allocate dollars to diversity equity inclusion initiatives within their organization. Because if there's not, and if it's not top-down, support it top-down from the, from the executive level of the organization, you're going to be swimming upstream, and probably not getting anywhere. So, if you have a budget and have executive-level support, you can really make a world of difference.David YoungbloodI apologize. But I'm such a nerd. I appreciate the alignment in the similarity between this effort and a sales effort. So, all the people that are watching and are a part of this right now, you know, go get bank qualification on your effort to drive you to know, DEI in your organization. Right. So, you know, the drill, just do it. Right. The other thing that to add here is, you know, obviously, this is a very important topic for all of us. And part of the challenges. There are no quick, easy, simple answers to a lot of these great questions. And so, what we'll be doing is actually, because there are still some questions here, and I know Ashleigh and Heidi are working on putting together LinkedIn posts, what we'll do is we'll parking lot those questions over to the LinkedIn post. And we'll we will continue to provide answers feedback. But please do chime in. We do want to hear your thoughts please help share the information so that we can, you know, empower and enable people to be informed, right, like it said earlier, people need to be able to educate themselves. So, it's up to us to kind of help also help get that information out there. Anyway. Apologies we can talk more and more on this, but we are, unfortunately, over on time I'm getting yelled at as much as in all caps somebody in Slack but uh, I appreciate you all hanging out with us and you even going over a few minutes it means so much. Um, you know, Ashleigh and Heidi think thank you both. This is an amazing section in session and definitely look forward to you following the chatter along as we move forward and take this to LinkedIn and other channels.Heidi Solomon OrlickThank you so much for having us. Really appreciate it.Ashleigh EarlyAbsolutely.David YoungbloodTake care.Heidi Solomon OrlickBye, David.Heidi Solomon OrlickBye, Ashleigh.David YoungbloodBye

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Heidi & Ashleigh - Diversity hiring and closing the gender gap | Accelerate 2021

<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate. Today, we’ll run through Jason Bay's talk on “2022 Outbound Blueprint: Steal this formula to double your results."&nbsp;

So, what we want to do really quick is a couple of things, we want to remove the surprise, and then we want to use what's called a permission-based opener. So sounds something like this. Ring ring, a person picks up hey, this is Jason from blissful prospecting. I know, I probably caught you in the middle of something, but you got 30 seconds for me to tell you why I'm calling. And then you could let me know if you want to keep chatting. Sandler Training kind of popularized upfront contracts. I like permission-based openers, any variation of that is really good. What you're allowing to do the prospect to do is to opt into the phone call, you're allowing them to have a choice. And by doing that, it feels a little counterintuitive. But when prospects feel like they have a choice, they're more likely to actually say yes. So, I'll give that to you one more time. Remove the surprise, hey, this is Jason was blissful, prospecting, permission-based opener, a, hey, I know probably catching the middle of something, but you got 30 seconds for me to tell you why I'm calling and then you can let me know if you want to keep chatting. So, the tonality is really important there too. I want to sound very sure of myself, I'm going to get the person to opt-in. Now, let's talk about the next part of the call. This is where most people mess up. The next thing that comes out of their mouth is an elevator pitch. So, if I'm using what Selina shared as an example, this is where people make a mistake. They say, hey, can I get 30 seconds to tell you why I'm calling then you can let me know if you want to keep chatting prospects as Yes. And then I say, hey, my name is Jason again, I work with ABC Company in what we do is we work with CEOs to help them get sales out of their hands so they can generate more sales. We work with companies like XYZ, and they're accomplishing these results. I was hoping we could set a meeting up for later this week. That's how a lot of reps will approach the cold call. The problem with that approach is that you sound like every other salesperson that's calling them. But let's look at what that violates here. What that violates is this piece that's me-centric. When you call a prospect, and you could call them, and you talk immediately you start the conversation with you and what you do. You're making it all about you. That's me-centric. What we need to do instead is actually need to start with the prospect. Okay, so let me open this up. Here's what that sounds like.Alright, so instead of doing an elevator pitch, what we're going to do instead is what I call a priority drop. So, I'm going to basically give the prospect a multiple-choice question. And I'm going to say so if I'm calling Selena, I'm gonna say, hey, again, my name is Jason, I'm giving you a call Selena because I talk to a lot of CEOs of companies. And one thing they tell me they're really focused on is getting sales out of the hands of their CEO, you. So, they can generate more sales. And they want to get past that revenue ceiling. So, you may want time off when to focus on other parts of building the business. That's the first thing I hear. And the second thing I hear is XYZ, which one of those two things are you most focused on right now? Right, so I'll give you an example with that welding company. It's their scripts that sounded something like this. Hey, this is Jason with ABC Company. Look, I know you're probably catching the middle of something. But you got a minute for me to tell you why I'm calling, and you can let me know if you want to keep chatting. prospect says yes.Well, hey, the reason I was calling is that I talked to a lot of VPs of manufacturing. And one thing they keep telling us right now is that there's a really big focus, around welders, particularly around the labor shortage of welders. So, I noticed that you guys are hiring three welders right now, in MIG welding positions. And what we keep hearing is that you want more of these folks, and they're just not sticking around for whatever reason for you to meet your production targets. The second thing I hear has to do with automation. So, if you're like a lot of the manufacturing plants, he automates probably about half of the parts on the trailers that you guys are making. And for those other halves of the parts that highly custom, low volume parts, you may have tried to automate in the past and for whatever reason weren't able to, I'm really curious. Which one of those two things are you most focused on right now? So, I'm talking about the prospect. Pretty cool, right? And you know what you might be thinking, well, they don't know what I do, Jason. If they're curious, they'll ask, think about that. Like, one thing I want you guys to think about is sales. One thing that happens is I want you to think about relationship dynamics. Okay. The relationship dynamic that salespeople get put in way too often is as a salesperson, I am a pursuer, and the prospect is being pursued. Right? We as salespeople we're running after our prospects, a way that we can break that dynamic is by starting with the prospect first and getting them to ask us a question. Pretty cool, right? So, what we can do here is if we start with them and do a priority drop, and that language, got it, by the way, you got to nail it. Right, and let me look here, there were a couple of other people that had some stuff in the chat, which was really good. But Celine, I'll just use yours as an example. Again, I love how specific it is, I talked to a lot of CEOs. And what I hear that they're working on is they want to get the hands, they want to get out of sales so that they can generate more sales as a company and get past a revenue ceiling. That's so specific. So, it can't just be grown revenue. All right, it's got to be super-specific. Alright, so once we've done this, and look at the time, we got 12 minutes here, so I'm going to be quick with this part. So, if we nail that priority drop, the prospect usually will say something like, well, yeah, of course, I'm working on that, or I'm working on both those things. And what that allows me to do is actually filter the conversation. And then what I can do is what I call questions to stack around problems.Okay, so in this piece, instead of saying you have this problem, I'm going to do what's called question stacking. And question stacking. I don't have I mean; I could do a whole hour just on question stacking, but the formula works like this. I'm gonna stack context, in front of a question. Okay. So, the way that might sound with Selena is something like this. Because the problem she put down was that they don't understand sales and don't know how to manage salespeople or set up sales processes. So, I'm not going to ask, what’s your biggest challenge been? in growing your sales? That question makes me look very uneducated. Like, I don't know their world. So, I'm gonna stack context in front of that question. And it's gonna sound something like this. So, if the CEO is like, yeah, you know, I actually am focused on getting out of sales. What I say is, hey, interesting, because what I'm hearing from a lot of CEOs right now is that they may or may not have come from a sales role themselves. So, they never had to formally build or set up a sales process. I'm really curious, how have you approached building your sales process? So, do you know what I'm doing there? I'm stacking context. Here in front of the question, I'm putting the problem in front of the question. And then I'm asking how what we're going to question around that problem. Some demonstrate business acumen by asking a smart question and then making an open-ended. And what this allows me to do, before I move into the close is I'm going to come up with two or three really good questions. And then I can move into the close. By doing two things, I'm going to summarize and then get an agreement. So again, if I'm selling an app, you're getting free coaching here. So, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to summarize what they shared. So, I'm going to say, hey, what I heard from you is that you're, you're building a sales process right now, you haven't had to formally do it before. And some of the issues that you're running into are like, you know, what kind of CRM to use, what stages of the sales cycle you should talk about, and really just how to support a rep. That's the summary part. And then they get the agreement part, I'm gonna say, Did I miss anything? So, I'm just summarizing, this is how you segue, by the way, the total power move, is you want to be the person to cut the call off. So, when you ask a couple of questions, get some problems, and don't let the call go on for 20 minutes, you're going to cut the call off. So yes, a couple of questions, get what you need. And then you're going to be like, hey, so what I'm hearing is this, this and this, did I miss anything? Prospects will usually say now. And then what I'm going to do to schedule the meeting is I'm going to ask this question, I'm going to say, Can I make a quick suggestion? And usually, the prospect will be like, the respond kind of funny, like, yeah, what what's going on? And like, I promised they'd be short at the beginning of the call. These all sound like things that we can help you with, from the work that we've done with x and z companies. How about we unpack this at a time when I'm not cold calling you in the middle of your day? Do you have your calendar handy? And then I'm going to go schedule the meeting. And I'm going to do what I call a triple confirmation. So, I'm going to send the invite on the call to them, and get them to accept it. I'm going to confirm the agenda one more time with them verbally, what we will be covering in that call, that's where the 'teach don't take' thing comes in. And then I'm going to send a confirmation email. So that's your cold call. Alright, so just to backtrack here for a second, with our intro, what's really important is that instead of an elevator pitch, I want to do a priority drop in the priority drop can't be Hey, I talked to CROs. And one thing they tell me is that they want to close more revenue. People are gonna be like, Thanks, Captain Obvious. That's what every CRO wants to do. Okay, it needs to be really specific, where it's like, hey, I talked to the VP of operations. And what they keep telling me is that sales, their sales team is selling so much that their production team can't keep up. They're having trouble hiring welders right now. That's how specific I want to get with that priority drop, I want to give them two or three options. Now go over the closing again here in a second Harshit. So that priority drops, I'm going to give them a multiple-choice question. And typically, if you've nailed this, people do like one or two, or they'll say both, and whatever may be the hook. I'm going to filter that conversation with the priority drop, and then I'm going to question stack around problems. So, I'm not going to say what's your biggest lead gen problem right now. I'm gonna say typically when I talk to marketing leaders like yourself, they've tried paid ads, and the cost keeps creeping up on the Facebook ads, and Instagram ads, there's a lot of you know, with iOS changes, things are kind of a problem. I'm really curious. Do you use paid ads? And if so, what have you noticed about the conversion rates and the cost per lead? Or the CAC, right, whatever terminology that you want to use? I'm going to question stack around those problems. I'm going to stack context in front of the question, and then I'm just going to summarize back to the prospect what I heard. And we're going to get an agreement, I'm going to say, hey, did I miss anything? Usually, they'll either add to that, or they'll say no. Have you noticed here too, one thing I want to highlight is that everything that we've talked about so far is I'm getting the prospect to talk about their problems? I'm summarizing what they said, and then I'm getting the agreement on what they said. I'm not saying anything about myself. If they ask you what you do, that's a good thing.You want them to ask you what you do. Alright, so I'm making it all about them. So, I'm gonna get an agreement. Did I miss anything? And then I'm just gonna say, hey, can I make a quick suggestion? Yeah, everything you shared today is something that it sounds like we could help you with based on the work that we've done with other companies like X, Y, and Z. And I promise that'd be short. How about we impact this at a time when I'm not calling you in the middle of your day? Get your calendar handy. Then I'm going to go in, and I'm going to confirm the call. All right. So just to kind of summarize today, there are a couple of things because I want to leave a minute or two here for q&amp;a. There are a couple of things that are super important. So, when you're thinking about 2022, what I want you to think about is identifying, engaging, creating the framework, and making those three key shifts. How do we find a balance between mass blast and quality first, how do we be less me-centric More you-centric, talk less about us more about them? And instead of always be closing, how can we teach don't take what can we teach our prospects? All right? The second thing that you need to do is that messaging matrix. So that prospect path framework that I showed you do that for your prospects, say, hey, I reached out to CEOs, what are their priorities? What are the problems that get in the way? And then how do I help them. And then lastly, I use cold calling as an example, adjust your talk track, adjust your cold emails, and adjust your LinkedIn messages to be more you-centric. So, what I'd like to do here Alright, so what I'd like to do really quick, is can you share with me five minutes can you share with me in the chat? What was your biggest takeaway from this session? What was most actionable for you? Share it with me in the chat. I'll give you guys like 30 seconds to do that. I'd love to hear what did you take away most? From today? Yeah, put them first. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the closing part, the insights piece. Very good. Let me know in the chat, what was your biggest takeaway? Oh, David, what do you want to do right now? Do you want to save go hit some questions, or what do you want to do?David YoungbloodWe're gonna do a little quick q&amp;a session. My takeaway is I definitely geeked out on your nerd level, your nerd game, with your screenwriting presenting material like I'm totally jelly. Definitely got to get some like that for myself and my presenter game. But uh, looks like we got some questions coming through. It's a comment, check out the Q&amp;A. Terry asked, what was that book? So, it was a book earlier that you were referencing or showing earlier on? Yes, no?Jason BayYeah, the book is thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. I'll put that in the chat.David YoungbloodThanks. And I'll ping you on LinkedIn or something separately for the scoop on the software and tech that you use? So, I'll mark that as answered. Yeah. And then you actually got my interest piqued. Because you're like, there's this whole other thing that I could talk about for an hour on called question staking. And I'm like, but I want to know more about that. So, if I'm not alone in that thought, how can our audience go about learning more about that topic from you?Jason BayFor that topic specifically, here's what I would do.David YoungbloodCould you do like a January February webinar on question stacking?Jason BayThat's what I was thinking we could do that and check out also I got a website here. blissfulprospecting.com and I did put together a little freebie for you guys. So, if you check out that blissfulprospecting.com/bitesized, that's actually like, got links to all of my best content. So, podcasts, LinkedIn posts, all of that kind of stuff. So, book, that bite-size document. Yeah, bookmark that there's a bunch of stuff in there around email, cold calls, etc. I don't know if there's anything specific or in question stalking. But yeah, we could definitely do a webinar on that for sure.David YoungbloodRight on. That's awesome. All right. Anybody else? Last chance? Any thoughts, questions, comments, or feedback for J Bay? Definitely lots of love. Love that. Awesome. Well, Jason, thanks so much, man. Again, truly a pleasure to have you. I'm looking forward to our new already figured-out topic for the Jan/Feb webinar. So well done there. For good, useful content. So Excellent. All right. With that audience, we'll turn it over to a poll as we transition to the next session, which will be in about five minutes and 45 seconds, give or take a few technical errors. Excellent.Jason BayI just dropped my LinkedIn profile in there. Follow me on LinkedIn if you're looking for daily outbound content.David YoungbloodYep. Excellent. All right, Jason. Well, thanks so much. Again, we'll definitely be talking to you, and Happy Holidays to you and yours.Jason BaySweet. Bye everyone, thank you.

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Jason Bay - 2022 Outbound Blueprint | Accelerate 2021

<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate. Today, we’ll run through Daniel Disney's (Author, The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide) talk on ‘The Amazing SDR Trifecta.’

<h1>Transcript&nbsp;</h1><h2>David Youngblood</h2>All right, we are connected. We are good to go. We're here. You're here for the last session of the first-ever Accelerate summit by Outplay, you made it this far. We have another speaker, yet another one that is available. And we're going to be talking today about a very, very interesting topic that all of us in sales development, love, like and appreciate and typically always want to know more about. So, we thought about who we could reach out to right who possibly would have and be the penultimate truths sayers and form it on this topic. So, we found none other than and friend of &nbsp;Outplays, Mr. Daniel Disney, who's going to be coming on and talking about top LinkedIn and social selling trends for 2022. Again, feel free to use the chat, and use Q&amp;A. With this session, we will be saving Q&amp;A as a follow-up to the event just due to time and, and a couple of other contributing factors. So, your questions will get answered just not during this event, unless I happen to know the answer. But other than that, here we go. With no further ado, we're going to bring in and bring on Mr. Daniel Disney with top LinkedIn and social selling trends for 2022. And when he's done, and I come back, we'll see you for a very special wrap-up and closing for Accelerate 2021. So, stay tuned.

<h2>Daniel Disney&nbsp;</h2>Hello there and welcome to my session today, which is the top 10 LinkedIn and social selling trends for 2022. We are heading into a whole new year very soon. And I want to equip you with all the tools, skills, and knowledge so you can leverage LinkedIn and social selling to its full potential next year. So let me give you a quick introduction to who I am. My name is Daniel Disney, I am not related to Walt Disney. But I am a LinkedIn and social selling trainer, speaker, and author I've written and published two books, the ultimate LinkedIn Sales guide, and the million-pound LinkedIn message. My passion, as I'm hoping you'll see by the end of today's session is helping companies’ sales teams and salespeople get the most from LinkedIn as the amazing sales tool that it is. I'm also the founder and owner of The Daily Sales, which is LinkedIn, his most popular page for salespeople, and an audience surpassing 775,000 followers and growing. I've achieved a lot on LinkedIn over the last seven to eight years, I've created a lot of content, built big brands, and generated a lot of revenue that has come directly from sales created on LinkedIn. And I'm going to be sharing with you what I see being the big focus areas on LinkedIn and social selling next year in 2022, which is just around the corner, we are so close to getting to the New Year 2021 has seen some huge changes on LinkedIn and in the world of social selling. And as we go into the new year, there are going to be new things that are going to be happening and new things that you should be thinking about and focusing on. Some of the things that came into LinkedIn this year, still aren't being adopted. There are a few things you'll see. And I'll talk to you about them and we get to them that came out this year in 2021. But the vast majority of people and I imagine most of you watching this, haven't even applied them. So, as we go into the new year, there are things that came up this year that we want to focus on, but also some trends that are worth keeping an eye on for next year. So, without wasting time, let's dig in. Let me get in and share with you my top 10 social selling trends for 2022. Now, this first one is a controversial one. What I will say is the last one number 10 is my personal favorite. It's the one when I deliver my corporate LinkedIn training sessions. It's the one that gets the biggest reaction. Usually, a lot of people open their eyes and go - yes, that's it. So, the last one's gonna hopefully be a nice one that you'll connect with. But this first one is controversial.Love it or hate it. My first top trend for LinkedIn and social selling is LinkedIn polls. And I imagine there'll be some of you that love LinkedIn polls, think they're absolutely amazing. And there will be some of you. I don't doubt it for a second that don't like LinkedIn polls. I see people usually once or twice a day writing a post on LinkedIn about how much they hate LinkedIn polls and or LinkedIn polls just stop and all kinds of complaints about them. Here is the reality, let's take opinion and emotion out of the equation, regardless of what you think they work. Now, if you're in a position where you don't need to generate any more customers, or any more sales, or any more brand awareness in 2022, absolutely don't worry about LinkedIn polls. But if you do want to business, if you do want to generate more customers, then it's hard to justify not leveraging them. And what I've seen over the year, beyond the amazing results that they've generated for me and the companies that I work with, but even the people that really hated LinkedIn polls earlier on in the year, and now starting to share them, because they work. Here is the thing right now, the LinkedIn algorithm is supporting and pushing LinkedIn polls. So, they are generating significantly higher reach than any other form of content, not just reach, but conversion. Conversion into leads, into new followers into reach, into inquiries. All these things are coming off the back of good LinkedIn polls. And that's the bit I want to focus on. Now. LinkedIn polls are good. They're a very effective piece of content. And when done right, did good bits of content. When done right. What most people hate, and I fully understand this are bad LinkedIn polls, and there are bad ones, for example, asking your LinkedIn network what they had for breakfast that day, has no relevance unless you work in the breakfast trade, and you sell breakfast options, then, of course, that is a relevant poll. But for the vast majority of people that do that poll, it's not relevant. Polls work when they're insightful, when they're relevant to your industry, to your customers, to your prospects to your network. There are so many different ways you can create good, insightful value-giving polls, and that's where the potential lies. Not just are they great pieces of content in their own sense, but they create future content. So as an example, the poll that I put in the slide was one I ran recently, when you're using LinkedIn at the weekends, are you working? Are you just browsing, I could take the data from that and share it as a future post? So maybe 57% of people that use LinkedIn at the weekends are just browsing, and I could share my thoughts on that, and how LinkedIn has changed. So, we're creating future content as well.So top Trend number one, and you know, for some of you, this might be uncomfortable to admit, LinkedIn polls, we're gonna see the traction continue, it's not going to last forever. I personally think we've got no more than three more months by the end of March 2022, I do believe we will see the engagement drop on LinkedIn polls, as LinkedIn will start to push other forms of content. But for now, there is a wave and LinkedIn polls is your surfboard. And you really don't want to miss riding that wave. You could gain a lot of business whilst that wave exists, whilst LinkedIn is pushing polls, or you can miss out. And you really want to get to next year and feel like you've missed out on opportunities. I personally wouldn't. So, embrace the polls, do good ones, create good, insightful, strong polls relevant to your industry, and then leverage the results that come off the back of them. So, number one, LinkedIn polls.Number two, personal brands. The single biggest opportunity for businesses for salespeople, and for sales teams, are personal brands. Gone are the days when marketing held all power on social media. Now the power has been dispersed into all of the individuals and you as a salesperson, sales team, all of your company, the employees individually, they carry so much opportunity and potential on LinkedIn. And as we go into 2022, more companies are going to see this, some of the biggest companies are waking up to this and investing in the right structure, support and training for their team to make sure they're building their brands on LinkedIn. And the results of the companies that are building their personal brands obviously is incredible. So, as we go into next year, I'd encourage you to start building and investing time in your personal brand. I want you to think about a few key activities. Number one is being active consistently. If you want to build a brand. If you want people to get to know you, you need to show up regularly and consistently at the very least two to three times a week. Doesn't have to be every day. Some of the best personal brands only post two to three times a week, that's fine any less you'll struggle. But if you do, build traction, if you do enjoy it, then you can go up to once per day as well. Be consistent, be reliable.Most importantly, give value. If you want people to look at you in a credible way if you want them to look at you in a way that they're going to trust you and potentially want to buy from you. You need to Lead with a value-giving mindset. There are no big personal brands where all they do is sell something you have to give first. So, when you're sharing content, when you're writing comments on people's posts, give value, and make sure it is all relevant to your audience, your network, your prospects, and your customers. So, number two is personal brands, now's the time to start investing in your personal brand and building it ready for next year.Number three better LinkedIn profiles, the standard of LinkedIn profiles is forever increasing what was a good LinkedIn profile five years ago, isn't a good LinkedIn profile anymore. And so, tip number three, my trend for next year, the standards of LinkedIn profiles will continue to rise and so it's important for you to make sure the standard of your LinkedIn profile meets those standards. So, let's just look at some of the key areas. Number one, professional photos, a lot of people still don't have professional headshots either have it done professionally or use your phone, most phones have a very powerful camera in them. Ideally, you want shoulders and above facing the camera smiling, and ideally against a plain color background. If you can't, if you don't have access to a plain colored wall, you can take a photo in front of anything and have it digitally added in. And it makes a big impact. It amplifies you in the picture. Number two on brand backgrounds. So, the banner image, and the background image behind your photo are also really important. That is your own personal billboard or your corporate personal billboard. And it's a chance for you, in a nutshell, to tell your prospects and customers what you do. What is it you sell? What service do you offer? What problems do you solve? How can you help them? So as soon as they land on your profile, that information is right their crystal clear. And they're able to know from the get-go, what it is you do. What that does is it filters people in and out. If they are your ideal customer profile, they'll stay in and they'll read on. If they're not, they'll wash away and not waste your time or their time. Then we need optimized summaries. This is the 'About you' section. There's a lot of space there. If you head to my profile after the session, you will see all the information that can be put into a LinkedIn summary. The biggest thing with this is it needs to be less about you and more about them. They don't really care about you; they care about what you can do for them. So, make it more customer-focused, customer-facing, make it more about what you can do for them. The final one and this is why I can almost guarantee 99% of everyone watching this right now won't have a cover story video yet this was introduced this year in 2021. Everyone has the ability to do on that most people haven't got around to doing it yet. And this is one of the biggest opportunities for salespeople, sales teams, businesses, and entrepreneurs - cover story videos, it's a feature that allows you to upload a 30-second video into your profile photo. So, when people go on your profile, they can click on it and see a 30-second video review where you can tell them in a nice engaging way, what it is you do for them. If you're curious, head over to my profile, and you'd better take a look at my cover story video. By the end of next year, lots of people will have these. So, if you want to get ahead of the curve, if you want to get ahead of your competition, now is the time to start thinking about recording yours. It's 30 seconds, it doesn't take a lot too long to plan it and record it and upload it. This isn't a huge task. But it's something that's going to sit on your profile. And you might have hundreds of people viewing your profile could be a lot of people viewing that video. So, take the time, make the effort and get a good cover story video to upgrade your LinkedIn profile ready for next year.Number four video messages. I'll put in here audio as well, video and audio messages on LinkedIn are growing. They're gaining incredible traction, and they're delivering incredible results for two big reasons. Number one, is novelty. Can you imagine being the first salespeople to ever make cold calls back in the day? I bet people loved having conversations with salespeople. I bet there was none of the negativity that we get nowadays. I bet it was - Oh, yes, I'd love to talk to you. This is how exciting it was? This is the opportunity that is available for salespeople now with video messages and voice votes for a lot of people, they're not receiving them. And so, the novelty is making them really effective. Some of the replies I get. I didn't even know you could do this on LinkedIn. Dan, yes, I'd love to get some more information. People are genuinely excited about receiving them. So, this is a novelty approach that's gonna have a huge impact. But number two, it's engaging, and people have different preferences. There are some customers of mine who only communicate through voice notes. We could send emails they could bring me up, they could send me a video, but they prefer voice notes. That's how they communicate with their friends and family and that's how they want to communicate with me as well and that's fine.My role as a salesperson is to adapt to my customers. Same with video. Some people will prefer videos, some people prefer audio, and some will prefer written. And so, it's important we adapt. This is part of our cadence as part of a multi touch cadence that we do in sales. Final tip with video and audio messaging, hyper personalize it, make it about them just like your profile. They don't care about what you're selling, they care about what it can do for them. So, make your messages about them, how are they going to benefit from talking or working with you. But going into next year, start leveraging video and audio messages, I have some content that can help if you're interested, ping me a message and I will send it over.Number five bigger networks. The average network, I believe in 2021 was 967. Around that number might be off a little bit. But it's around that number. It's just under 1000. As we go into next year. What I'm seeing at the tail end of this year, and I know is going to be a big thing next year are people are growing their networks, and they're investing time to grow their LinkedIn networks. And I think we'll see the average go from two to 3000. Plus, I'm seeing people start to grow audiences of over 5000 Just salespeople in general sales teams, they're growing their audience, and now's the time to invest in yours, your network has a value if you fill it with the right people. Think of it as an investment. I am forever grateful for the investment I made seven, eight years ago, and the commitment I made to grow my audience. Because I'm reaping the benefits. I have been reaping the benefits every year since and as long as I continue to nurture it and grow it, I will continue to reap the benefits, it generates my income, and it has a monetary value. And yours could and should have the same. So, start looking to grow your audience with the right people. Again, think of it from a marketing perspective. If I'm a marketing manager, I have a company page on LinkedIn, maybe it has 1000 followers, if I'm lucky, you know, that's my reach. But then I have 20 people in the company.Imagine if they each had 1000 connections and actually 2000, 3000 the reach is incredible. So, the marketing department should start to wake up to the fact that they are going to stand more of a chance of results. If they market through the team instead of just through their own marketing channels. There is a short-term and long-term value - you'll be generating results pretty quickly. But you want to think about your future self-one year, two years, three years down the line. That person is going to be grateful for the decision you make now to start investing and growing a bigger network.

Right number six social selling 24/7. LinkedIn used to be a Monday to Friday, nine to five platform. People would log in as and when they were at their desk at work. Now across 2021. Especially LinkedIn is a 24/7 platform. People are running it every day, on weekends, mornings, day, evenings, late early, every single day of the week. And as we go into 2022 a lot of salespeople, a lot of entrepreneurs, sales leaders, and people are using LinkedIn again to start using it a lot more outside of those core working hours. People logging in after work, before work, at the weekends, and engagement during those times is rocketing weekend engagement is at an all-time high right now. In fact, for some people, some of their most successful posts are done at the weekends. So, the potential is huge outside of the Monday to Friday, nine to five. So, something you need to think about. I don't have the answer to this for a lot of salespeople that contracted to work Monday to Friday nine to five and that is quite restrictive. As we go into this new modern sales, digital sales landscape hybrid working, we need to start opening our minds to the reality that sales are not nine to five, sales stopped being nine to five years ago, before social media. But this has helped speed up that process. I have customer interactions at any hour of the day. Now I balance it out. That's the important part. I don't work 24/7. No one should work 24/7. But we should be able to talk openly as a company as a team about a more flexible style of working, results-driven working whatever it may be. I don't have the answer. But I want to plant the seed. And the reality is there are opportunities on LinkedIn. And for some of you some of your prospects, you will stand more chance of engaging them outside of the nine to five than you would inside the nine to five so it's something to figure out how that could work for you.

<h2>Daniel Disney&nbsp;</h2>Number seven is social selling technology. Now for the first few years, I was social selling on LinkedIn, there were no tools you could use. Yes, there was Sales Navigator, but that was it. Now we're seeing an influx of tools and that is exciting. Lots of new tools and technologies to help us sell better on LinkedIn. Some of my personal favorites. Obviously, video platforms, Vidyard has been doing LinkedIn videos for about a year now. Video works is a new platform. They're going to be integrating LinkedIn early next year, and they make sending video messages super interactive and super easy to do. Oneshot.ai was probably my favorite tool for 2021. And I can see it starting to impact a lot of sales teams in 2022. They help automate the personalization of LinkedIn messaging, through connection requests, in-mails, and messages. And it's a phenomenal tool the AI built into it is incredible. And I have pretty high standards on LinkedIn messages, I wrote a book about them. And trust me, this is the one and only piece of software that I personally have used myself and use quite commonly. So Oneshot.AI is one of my favorites, Hootsuite or Buffer, or auto-scheduling tools. So over Christmas, I'm going to be taking some time off to spend with my family and my kids. But I will have content going out on LinkedIn that will be scheduled in advance on Hootsuite, or what I use Buffer I've used Hootsuite before both are fantastic platforms, it helps you with consistency.Building a brand, and generating business on LinkedIn, a lot of it comes down to being consistent. These tools allow you to be consistent without having to live on LinkedIn. So do check those out. Subtitle allows you to add subtitles to your videos so people can read when you share video content. Canva is the best content creation platform out there completely free to use as well. It'll help you create image-based content for LinkedIn. And trust me, I'm not a graphic designer, I'm a salesperson. My experience comes from knocking on doors and making cold calls. But Canva is easy to use it is drag and drop. It is simple. If I can do it, then anyone can do it. Shield analytics will help you get a deeper understanding of your content and its performance on LinkedIn. I would only recommend that if you've been sharing content for six to 12 months consistently, and you're generating some level of results.The final one is Sales Navigator a lot of people don't realize they're separate tools. LinkedIn and Sales Navigator are not the same thing. And Sales Navigator creates a whole host of new opportunities for leveraging LinkedIn and social selling. It's fantastic. It's not for everyone, and there is a right time to look at investing in it. If you want, I did a whole webinar about this one-hour webinar on when the right time is for Sales Navigator, ping me a message on LinkedIn, and I'll send you the recording with no issues whatsoever. Right, we're getting close to the end. Now sales creators, regardless of what position you have people becoming more creative focused on LinkedIn is going to be a big part of next year. A few reasons for this number one, LinkedIn is investing in this themselves. They are putting a lot of resources, people, and even incentives for people to become more creative on LinkedIn. So, you can tell if they're doing it because they've got a long-term plan for creators on the platform. It's also important for your personal brand we are in a competitive world, there are a lot of people posting on LinkedIn now. And if you want to stand out if you want to cut through that noise, if you want to break through, you need to find creative ways to share your content. Think about better storytelling. Think about how you write. Think about your copy. Think about photos. If you're taking and sharing a photo, try and get it at the right angle, with the right lighting, etc. Think about your own unique individual style. Think about what makes you different. Think about content that's going to stand out and what is going to help you stand out from your competitors. You need to tap into your inner creativity, everyone has one not everyone's going to be you know super confident on camera doing these really great videos. Some people write really well. Some people draw. Some people like me make memes. Some people are clever with words and quotes. Some people like data and facts and knowledge that they can share. Everyone has something they can bring to the table; it is on you to dig out with trial and error practice. But then find your creative voice. Everyone has one, once you find it, the world is your oyster on LinkedIn. And as we go into next year, more and more people will be finding their inner voice, as you see that are building their personal brands on LinkedIn.Number nine, this is a really important one, hyper-personalization, these standards of messaging are rising faster than LinkedIn profiles in the sense that your customers and prospects are inundated every day with terrible sales messaging. And these are all based on old playbooks and old cadences and old touchpoint software systems. It's a style that is becoming less and less effective. And what we're seeing is to get responses to get results, you need to make your messaging more about them. It's not enough to just put their name in and then pitch your product. It's not enough to put their name and put their company name in and pitch your product. You need to make your messaging whether it's phone calls, social selling, written LinkedIn message, audio, message, video, message, email, whatever it is, you need to make it more about them.The more you make it about them, the more chance you have of getting a reply and the more chance you have of progressing it through the sales process. So, you need to look at investing in personalization, you need to commit time to do more research, and you need to find information that no one else is finding out. While most salespeople are copying, pasting, and sending terrible templates, you need to be the one that goes a step further, that goes the extra mile that looks deeper looks in their profile, deeper looks into the content that they're sharing, does research on the website, on the company pages content. Maybe digs into other people in the team as well. Dig as deep as you need to reflect the value that prospect is to you. But make your messaging about them, show them that you've made an effort, show them that you're not just trying to sell to anyone and everyone, but that you genuinely believe that you can help them. There is a whole host of information on LinkedIn, there's a goldmine of information, you can look through their LinkedIn profile and find a ton of information. You can go on their activity feed, you can see what they're posting, what they're commenting on, and what they're sharing, you can get a lot of information on them. Maybe I send you a message - Hey, Sarah, love that post you shared on LinkedIn last week. Really liked the story. I can really show her that I actually consumed the content. Instantly, you stand out to Hi, Sarah, my name is Dan, I work for this company, and this is what we sell, which they're instantly going to shut off from start talking start starting conversations, not pitching products. Hyper personalization is going to be a key factor in success in sales next year and social selling. So, make sure it's part of your strategy, make sure you're making a bit more effort than you may already be making. Because that effort could be the decision between whether they respond to your message or delete your message. We want them to respond to your message.The last one is number 10 and there are a few final tips to share after this one, number 10. This is an important one, this is a big one, the personal professional balance, there is a trap that a lot of salespeople and general LinkedIn users are falling into. Now, the scales that exist on LinkedIn are the personal and professional scales. The trap that people fall into, is when you share personal content, sometimes vulnerable personal content, sometimes really deep topics and stories, it can gain a lot of traction and get a lot of engagement. The trap is people then think, great. If that's what's working, I'm just going to do that. And I'm just going to be really open and vulnerable and really focus on those key points. These sales exist. And if you go too much in that camp too much in the personal camp, yes, you might get tons of likes, you might get loads of followers, but you will struggle to generate business from it. Because whilst they may like you as a person, whilst they may sympathize with your story and your circumstances, that doesn't necessarily build confidence, trust, or credibility. Now, if we flip it over to the other scale, you've got professional, if you go too professional, with your content, probably going to be boring. You will struggle to generate any engagement, and thus will struggle to generate any result as well. The sweet spot. And the key to success in 2022 is that sweet spot in the middle, the balance the perfect balance between personal and professional. Yes, you want to share professional content, valuable insight, build your credibility, and show that you know what you're talking about, that you believe in your product or service that you're passionate about your industry. But at the same time, show yourself, let them see you as a human being not just another salesperson trying to sell something that is a real person, someone that they can get to know people buy from people, show yourself again, remember the sales and avoid the trap. Don't get too personal. Just find that balance in the middle. That's going to be the sweet spot for salespeople for sales teams, for anyone looking to generate business on LinkedIn.Be aware of it. Don't be tempted. There'll be an adrenaline junkie, we think oh, yes. Or I like those likes. I like the comments. I like the followers, and want to be LinkedIn famous. There are lots of people that you might even be following right now they get tons of engagement that aren't generating any business from LinkedIn or barely any business from LinkedIn. Yes, it's quite easy to get likes to create viral content is hard to generate sales and build a personal brand that's credible, long-lasting, and able to generate good business. It comes from that sweet spot. Personal professional content, make sure you're sharing both. Get that done right. Next year, there is a huge social selling opportunity. And if you're not doing it already, now is the time to get started. Now is the time to take this seriously. LinkedIn is a goldmine of opportunity, an organic opportunity. We don't have to spend money on adverts and things like that, that you can just go on by being consistent by giving value all these things make an impact. So, as you go into 2022 Here are my tips Plan time for LinkedIn. Tip one. Not really tip one I've given you loads of tips in this session, tip number whatever took time in your calendar. I recommend this for everyone watching this right now go into your calendar. I have Google Calendar, click on Monday, find a time that you can do on a daily basis consistently for LinkedIn, and book half an hour to an hour, that's all, I put it as LinkedIn time. Schedule it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, as a recurring meeting for the entire year, book LinkedIn into your calendar for the whole of 2022. That will encourage and nudge you to make sure you're consistent on LinkedIn. When you do use LinkedIn in those times, start to do some of the things that we've covered today. Learn how to do it properly. There is a whole host of resources out there, there are free resources. There are podcasts, my own podcast, there are YouTube videos, I have a YouTube channel as well as many other LinkedIn trainers, and there is a whole host of free content.Next step up when you're ready to invest a little bit in have a look at books, there are some great LinkedIn and social selling books, I can recommend you plenty obviously mine, the ultimate LinkedIn Sales guide is the most up to date comprehensive LinkedIn guide out there that's available on Amazon, in hardback and in Kindle digital. Then look at other things if you want to invest and really take it to the next level. Most of us LinkedIn trainers offer online courses, virtual courses, live courses, etc. Learn how to do it properly, and be consistent. When you plan it in, hopefully, you'll start to increase your consistency. Lead with value. Don't go on LinkedIn to sell go on there to give then pitch your products, and solve people's problems. Lead with a value-giving mindset. If you want to generate traction, if you want to create opportunities you need to give more than you take when you give. People tend to want to follow you when they follow you. If you, do it the right way, you're going to get business from it. So, lead with value. Finally, uncover your inner creativity. They're in there somewhere. And it's on you to start digging that out. Being creative is fun, it's enjoyable, it's rewarding, but it's a key component of successful social selling. So have a look at tapping into your inner creative. Find what you enjoy what you're passionate about, and how you can bring that to LinkedIn. Do those things. And I hope you will make 2022 your best year ever more leads to more sales. And what you will do is start sowing the seeds for your future. What you achieve in 2022 will then lay the framework for 2023. The things you do over the next year, the new connections you grow the audience that you grow, the personal brand you build the content, you share, the messages you send will all lay the foundations ready to make 2023 Even better, and 2024 and 2025. Think about all the things you do as an investment.Hopefully, the sessions helped. Hopefully, it's given you some good starting points, some things to go away, think about planning, strategize, maybe even start on now ready to use next year. I hope you have enjoyed the session. For anyone who's interested. Both of my books are available on Amazon. If you have any questions about them, just ping me a message. But beyond that, I hope it's helped go and use LinkedIn to its full potential and any questions you've got pop me an email, shoot me a LinkedIn message, and send me a connection request. I'm here to help if you need help on LinkedIn. That's what I'm here to do. I hope you enjoy the rest of the event here. I hope you've enjoyed this session all the other amazing sessions and I look forward to hopefully seeing you your business your sales teams on LinkedIn in 2022. And I hope to see you generating lots from it. Thank you Take care, and I will see you later.

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Daniel Disney - Top LinkedIn & Social Selling Trends for 2022 | Accelerate 2021

<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate. Today, we’ll run through Shruti Kapoor's (CEO, Wingman) talk on “Customer objections - opportunity not obstacle”

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Shruti Kapoor - Customer Objections; Opportunity NOT Obstacle | Accelerate

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The Hype is Real - Amit Bendov, Gong | Episode 1

The Hype is Real - Amit Bendov, Gong | Episode 1.png

<a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Accelerate 2021</a> was a 2-day virtual summit that featured 12 sales leaders and coaches, hailing from the hottest B2B companies. An event that brought together the top minds in sales whom everyone loves.This is a blog series where we cover the speaker's speeches from Accelerate.Today, we’ll run through Brandon Bornancin’s (CEO, Seamless AI) talk on “10 secrets to booking 51,927 meetings and how you can too”

<h1>Summary of the talk</h1> The first secret is to reverse-engineer your goals, to figure out the number of meetings, calls, social touches you need in a day, and then make your daily goal 3x or 5x of it.Since people barely have their phone numbers changed, make sure you get your prospect’s phone number and email address.Drop a voicemail after every call, every outreach.Use the 17-seconds cold-call opener, ask people if they can give you just 17 seconds to drop value. Complement them, then drop the value.Have scripts ready for every type of rejection, so that you’re ready with some answer as soon as you hear it.Save your prospect's email signature, since most of them have personal details like their cell phone number.If you can’t find the prospect’s cell number, then reach out to the people around them. Contact them and ask them how you can connect with the prospect. You can also get a referral from that colleague then.Use the double callback method to get your prospect to answer the call. Immediately call the prospect after the first unresponsive call, in most cases, they won’t ignore the second call from the same number.Have a master sales script ready for every situation, so that you’re always prepared.Display tonality, know when to be excited, appear calm, etc.Focus on delivering value to your prospects, help them when you can. It’s all about creating urgency,Go-to formula - RCVSIC = Research, Compliment them, Value proposition, Social proof, Introduction, Call-to-action.‍<h1>Transcript ‍</h1><h1>Brandon Bornancin‍</h1> Awesome. What's going on everyone? Happy, happy Tuesday, we're thrilled to be a part of this amazing event. Hopefully, all of you are learning some top sales secrets to apply to maximize your success at, the end of the year and going into 2022. By the way, for all those tuning in, there are 12 sales days left, you take out the holidays, you take everything out 12 sales days left, may the Salesforce be with all of you these next 12 days. And we're thrilled.Thank you so much for joining us. Pete Rock, let me know any attendees that we got coming in names, you name it, I've got my video guy over here. And as they come in, please feel free to comment to chat to engage with us in the chat, my video guy will be hitting me up reaching out, and we'll be making it happen. So today, we cover the top 10 secrets we use to book 51,927 meetings in 2021.That's absolutely insane. Our team has been on fire. And I'm thrilled to share with you these sales secrets that you can apply to anything you're doing in sales, development, AE, if you're a sales leader, you name it, all of these secrets, you can apply and leverage to maximize sales, increase leads, appointments, revenue, you name it today. So, let's dive right in and Pete Rock clicker.Awesome. And like we imagine who's this for CEOs, VPs of sales pays SDRs. Anyone in sales, anyone in marketing, anyone entrepreneurship, anyone that is looking to increase the amount of business that they generate online, offline, you name it, this will help you get there faster.And for those who don't know me, I'm Brandon Bornancin, the founder and CEO of Seamless.AI, the world's best sales leads. I am a serial entrepreneur and salesperson. So, I started my career selling for the gambling industry. So, I used to slice dice and sell memberships to all the online poker sites when I was 18 in college, and then that blew up to a $12 million business. And then they made online gambling illegal. And I lost my business.So, I decided to start a second company called N Mobile. And that was text message marketing. I ran that company for a few years. And it was an utter absolute failure, the 12 million that I made through online gambling - I lost within mobile, it was terrible. And all because the reason why this text message software failed in 2007 is that I didn't know how to sell. I didn't know how to sell build lists. I didn't know how to do outreach. I didn't know how to do emails, calling, social selling, you name it.So, I was like, okay, after I lost everything, I owned, I was like you know what I'm going to sell for the biggest company in the world. IBM interactive, So joined IBM, sold for them for three to four years. And then after that got recruited to sell for Google. And then while I was selling for IBM and Google realized that it was difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to acquire new customers and wanted to build a technology to automate all of that. And that's the company that I represent today. And feel free to connect with me.I'd love to connect with all of you guys as we go throughout this presentation, post-presentation, please. You know, follow me, connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, you name it. We post daily sales secrets, to maximize your sales success. But to dive in, we're going to dive in furiously. By the way, again, we're using the chat or following the chat.Make sure please in the chat, let me know your name and the location, and where you’re reaching out from. I'd love to hear from all of you. So please start dropping your name. Your location, Pete Rock hit it with me how we are looking.‍<h1>Pete Rock‍</h1>Oh, we are looking good. Shout out to David, shout out to Laxman. Shout out to Vamsi, shout out to Suju. Shout out to everybody, dropping your stuff in the chat right now.<h1>Brandon Bornancin‍</h1>Awesome. Thank you so much for jumping into the chat and any questions you have along with the session. Please be sure to engage there. So today, Pete Rock, clicker. Today we are talking about the 10 secrets to booking over 51,927 meetings in 2021.<h1>#1. Reverse engineer your goals‍</h1>You have to reverse engineer your goals. So, if you want to do a million dollars in sales, divide that number by the number of sales days 265 sales days. So, you take the goal, hey, I want to do a million dollars. Divide that by the number of sales days 265. That will give you the number of sales that you need to generate. It's nearly $4,000 a day. It's like 3667 something, okay? Then you have to figure out daily if that's my sales number.Then you have to figure out how many appointments do I need to hit daily to hit that sales number of roughly 4000 a day. Then after that, you got to figure out how many leads I need to generate, take that sales number, you always want to reverse engineer your goals, figure out what you're going after how many leads, meetings, dials, emails, social touches, do I need, you name it. And then you know, when you're shooting for the stars, I recommend going after 3 to 5x your quota, &nbsp;3 to 5x, your daily quota.So, if you want to do a million, you know that you got to generate 4000 in sales a day, make it 12,000. Every time I was able to do it that way, I went from five figures to six figures; six figures is seven figures in sales because I multiplied my daily quota by 3x. By 5x, you name it. That ensures okay, you may miss the 3x number. You may not hit 3 million doing all the calls, the leads, the emails, the social touches the booked appointments, but guess what happens?You will hit the 1.5x numbers, switch the cameras, you will hit the 2x you will hit the 2.5x. So yes, you may miss the 3x number. But guess what? You hit it, you hit the 1x quota. Because you shot for the 3x quota, you will never miss your quota. Again, if you apply the reverse engineering of your goals, multiplying that quota by three to 5x and never giving up. That's secret number 10.&nbsp;

Secret #9. Get cell phones and emails for all your prospects‍You got to have everyone working remotely right now. Cell phones are king, you have to figure out a way to get a hold of all of your prospects wherever they're located. To figure out where are they at? How can I get their cell phones? How can I call them? How can I text him? No one's working at the company anymore. WeWork, the IPO, look at the WeWork IPO struggling dramatically, right? Everyone is working remotely, you need to find their cell phones, especially with great resignation, people are switching jobs. This is why we posted that people are switching jobs once a year - &nbsp;almost the only way to stay in touch with all these people year over year, decade after decade, month over month is by getting their cell phones. And that's mainly because everyone's working from home.And also, with all the data out there. 89% of people do not change their cell phones because they find it right here. It's a pain to change your phone numbers. They never felt a need to change their phone numbers. So, what's great about once you have a prospects’ cell phone, you've got it forever. No one ever changes their cell phone. So, get their cell phone using seamless.ai or googling or wiggly googly. Whatever you got to do to get the cell phone seamless is going to find it insanely fast. So, join Seamless for free, click the “find button”, and boom, in two seconds, you've got their cell phones, save that to your CRM, and never lose that cell phone ever again.Common reasons we already went over number eight, secret number eight. By the way, guys, let me know if you've got any questions or comments about these secrets in the chat.This is the 17-second call opener. So, let's talk about a lot of people trying to say like myths and all this jazz where they're like the phone doesn't work. Selling over the phone doesn't work. Calling doesn't work. No matter what you do. If you try to use a cell phone, no one's gonna pick up blah, blah. The majority of the 51,000 calls 51,000 appointments that we've generated are because of using the phone. You know how easy it is to delete an email, you know, easy it is to delete a LinkedIn message. I get 1000 emails a week, probably more than that. I think it's way more than my LinkedIn. I have two to three people that manage my LinkedIn because of how many people messaged me, guess how many calls I've had today. I've had three to four sales calls today. I probably get 20 to 40 LinkedIn messages an hour. The phone is one of the most powerful channels in the world of leverage. But you got to get through to get to the contacts and get the contact to get excited about you.So, my favorite opener I want to share this little sales secret with you. My favorite sales call opener is a compliment and then asking for the 17 seconds. “Hey, Pete Rock, I love the video editing that you do. It's seamless, huge fan. Congrats. Can I get 17 seconds really quick?” Guess what happens? First off, whether it's 17, 27, 37 - I like using 17 to 27 seconds. I may switch it up every now and then. But I love the number seven and every time I've used can I get 17 seconds really quick. 99.9999% will say yes for sure. Shoot. I am busy but go. Because even if you're busy and you don't want to talk to anyone, you're still gonna be like wow, 17 seconds, I'll give it to you. Let's roll.Boom, that so when you're on the phone, the number one key is to not sound like a salesperson, you got to get through the door, you got to get them to open and listen to your sales pitch. Well, the only way to do that is by using the 17-second call opener. It's my number one secret. For anyone that's too busy. Anyone that's making calls. Anytime you're using the phone to sell to anyone, anything, I highly recommend using the 17 seconds. Hey, John, you got 17 seconds really quick. But first, always open it up with a compliment. You want to use a compliment, because every time you compliment someone, hey, I love that dress. Hey, you look pretty, Brandon, your suit looks amazing. Guess what happens? The guards go down. So literally you're like more open, you're psychologically more interested in talking to the person. You're more receptive to whatever these people have to say. And then you hit them with the 17 seconds. Compliment. I always like to use the day of the week. Hey, John, happy Monday. I love everything you're doing over there at blank. Can I get 17 seconds really quick? They always say yes. And then you got to go into your value proposition pitch, which should be highly customized to the niche and the person and the companies that you're selling to.That was secret number eight, we went into a lot of detail there. Let me know if you got any questions. Pete Rock, start reading out some of the ads, some of the things going on, as you see highlights. Sorry, guys, we got my computer over there. So, as we see anything important in the chat, q&amp;a, interactions, shout them out. And we'll rock and roll and then hit the thing on the screen. Alright, so this is highly controversial, but I’m on everything you do. You have to leave a voicemail, you gotta leave a voicemail. But could you imagine, you know, I used to do door-to-door sales, I used to do tele-calling tele-prospecting, like for nonprofits when I was 13, 14, 15 years old. And I couldn't imagine going door to door as a door-to-door salesperson knocking on doors. And if they're not home, doing nothing, leaving nothing, not sharing more information with them, you name it. So, whenever I would go sell door to door and I was the number one door-to-door salesperson as a kid, I would leave a nice little package, a nice little letter, a nice pitch with the letter and the info on the door handle. And I would put it on the door handle so that they have to remove it. So, they can't even enter their house until they rip it off the door handle.So, when I was going door to door, I would leave these pitches basically an impression and ad for my products and services and my contact info for them to reach out to me about whatever I was trying to sell. Well, when you're calling and selling, you got to make sure you drop voicemails and voice messages. Because if you're calling and you're not telling them who you are the biggest desires, the biggest goals, the biggest dreams, the biggest things that you could deliver for these prospects to change their lives forever for the better. They're not going to be able to call you back. How am I going to call you back? If you call me? I don't answer because I'm at this presentation at a conference. You don't leave a voicemail. I don't know if you call me. I have no idea who you are what you do. But let's just say, you know right now, we've got like multiple computers here running this conference thing. If you're like, hey, I got an event solution where you can have one computer, you control everything, you can see the chat, you can see the monitors, blah, blah, blah, give me a call. I know you're doing live events. When I get out of this event, I'm going to call that person because I'm going to be like my video guys. And we need to figure this out. It's a game over make sure you drop voicemails on every single call you make, get the maximum number of impressions into your prospects to hit that X button.

Pete Rock I got a question here from the audience, from Michelle, she's asking usually people get offended when you reach out to them on their personal phone number.Brandon Bornancin Okay, so the question was if you didn't hear what Michelle say, sometimes people get offended if you reach out to them on their cell phones. I've got a product and service that will fundamentally change your life forever for the better. I have to do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to connect with you. You know, if I'm a doctor and I created a pill that cured a deadly disease, and I'm trying to reach out to you and get a hold of you at your company and I can't get through. Then as the doctor, I better be doing everything I can to save your life. I'm going to call your cell phone; I'm going to text you, I'm going to email you, &nbsp;I'm going to use every single channel possible. Because of what I have, I know your life would be forever for the better. And I have to do whatever it takes to reach you on whatever channel that I could reach you on. So, I think anyone that you get upset, Michelle, about you calling on their cell or their personal lines. Like we made almost a million sales calls. You know this past year like, rarely does anyone get pissed and if they do get pesters, apologize. Oh, sorry. There's a phone number I had, you know, to reach you and I know that this will change your life forever for the better and then go into the pitch on why they should take 20 seconds, 30 seconds 50 seconds to learn more from you. So don't feel worried. Like, you know, everyone gives you all these objections, right, everyone's going to tell you I'm not interested, there’s no budget, it's too expensive, already working with someone, send more info, call me back later. Or why are you calling on my cell phone? So, for any of these objections, or excuses, make sure you have just really good scripts lined up so that you can easily overcome that if it comes up again. So, again, another great way to use voicemails is literally on LinkedIn. So, you can record a video, you can record audio and drop it on Linkedin.So, the next time that they're on LinkedIn, they see the emails, they see the voicemails, they see the video voice message on InMail on LinkedIn. So cut through the all the noise of like, I get a million text messages on LinkedIn, like text, emails, the videos, I watch 100% of the time, every single video that anyone has ever sent me on LinkedIn, I've pulled up and I've watched. And, you know, you want to make sure that you keep them short, concise, under 60 seconds, ideally, like 30 seconds, just straight to the point. “Hey, John, I can help you. You don't do X in y timeframe, here's how to reach out to me, you know, get back to me with a few times that work for you. Drop your cell phone. “ I like to either ask them for time, or I like to add the call to action by asking for their mobile or a good time to shoot them attacks with more info, you name it, and then they'll get back to you.Number six, email signature saving. So, what you want to do here is if you've got seamless.ai. Seamless will automatically save every single email that gets sent to you. So literally every email that gets sent to you, you could save the email signatures, then those email signatures automatically get piped into your CRM. And why that's critical is you never want to lose a contact ever again. You never want to lose a connection with anyone ever again. If people are jumping ship, every year you name it, email signatures have some of the highest amounts of cell phones out there in the email signature. You don't want any of you to have to sit there and copy and paste email signatures all day every day. Seamless, will save all the email signatures and you'll be off to the races? Clicker thing. All right, cool.It's secret number five. No cell? Then hey, start calling other contacts at the company. So, this is a great secret that works. If you no matter what, can't find the person's cell phone, can't connect with the person at a highly valuable important account, right? If you're trying to break into an account, let's just say Nike, Adobe, Google, Facebook, IBM, whatever. And you know that the VP of X is John Smith, no matter how many calls, emails, social touches you do, you can't get a hold of them. I recommend calling a colleague below them or around them, call the influencers, the decision-makers, the budget holders, the people around them, the users. And then when you're reaching out to these people say “Hey, Pete Rock man, I was dying to get a hold of John Smith, I've got some important tool that he needs to see. What's the best direct line for him? What's the best cell for him? What's the best email for him, you name it?” And that way, you know, you could easily get the referral from that colleague, and you get the direct contact info for that person. So, you got to leverage the people around your center of circle, wherever you want to go to whoever you need to book a meeting with. If no matter what you do, it's not working, use and leverage relationships with the prospect and the people around them to get to where you need to go.

Right, so, number four, the double callback. So, this is a new sales secret. Literally when you're on the phone, what you want to do is let's just say you call someone - it goes to their voicemail pretty quickly. When you call them back right away, you have a highly greater likelihood that they will pick up the phone, important prospects that I'm dying to reach out to. When I call them once and it goes to voicemail or no one picks up, I literally call back again right away. And then they'll answer, and I go into my compliment, I go with my 17-second opener, then you know, I go into the value propositions. So that's the double callback If you call and no one picks up the call again, make it happen. You know, it's common for people to ignore unknown first calls, but it's not uncommon for them to ignore two calls, called back-to-back. So I highly recommend this. You know, especially for those prospects that no matter what you do, you can't get ahold of and you can't connect with.Secret number three is, we got to build master sales scripts, like your cold call openers, your cold email openers, your social openers. Scripting works when you go to any movie. So, like, Red Notice with Dwayne the Rock Johnson - &nbsp;Red Notice literally is the number one most popular movie on Netflix. Do you think Dwayne the Rock Johnson goes and shoots that video without knowing what to say? He doesn't go on to say okay, guys, what do you want me to say here? Let me know what you know, you think I should do or say or act like here for this scene. Now the guy has a script 1000 pages long. And he's memorizing every single line every day. The guy trains on these scripts, hours and hours a day for every movie. That's why he's so good. Because when he's acting, he's got all of the scripts memorized. So, no matter what happens, he's ready to go, he's ready to crush the scene.And the same secret applies to salespeople. Highly recommend making sure you memorize and watch your scripts. Clicker, okay. Um, you and also when you're leveraging scripts and reaching out to people, we help x do y. Like we help the persona, do Y's biggest desire. So, we help salespeople book three appointments a day, insanely fast without endless manual list building prospecting, CRM data entry appointment setting, like you want to really focus on the pitch and the scripts around the persona. And then their biggest problems, their biggest pain points or biggest challenges their biggest desires, their biggest dreams. And why could be a mixture of all of those. Like if you focus on the pain and the problem, you could be like hey, we help X eliminate the biggest pain points, biggest problems, biggest challenges, biggest stress, biggest thing that keeps him up at night, you name it. So, you always want to leverage that we help x do y, y could be eliminating a pain or y could be achieving their biggest goals their biggest dreams, their biggest desires.Number two, when you're pitching and pitch verbally in calls, emails, social touches video, whatever it is, make sure that you're leveraging tonality, you got to leverage the power of tonality you got to come in, get people excited, figure out when you got to slow down to exude a point, an important point about a feature or functionality. Or maybe you're sharing your origin story and there were a lot of highs and a lot of lows. The power of tonality helps you engage, interact, connect with an audience as you tell the story in your pitch about where the prospect is today. We're going to take them into the future. How are you going to help them accomplish all of their goals and dreams? How are you going to eliminate all of their pains and problems and challenges? Tonality allows you to connect with a prospect.Could you imagine if I was on this thing saying “Hello, this is Brandon Bornancin, I'm the CEO of Seamless.ai, we deliver the world's best sales leads. I would like to set up an appointment with you. Let's book an appointment right now. I'm available tomorrow at 12, 2, and 4.” Guys see, some sales development reps, some AEs are on the demos, or they're making the sales cold sounding like that. You have to leverage tonality to exude like I've got 1,000% belief in my products and services. I believe wholeheartedly that this will change your life forever for the better, that my tone, that confidence, that energy, that passion, that belief. Nothing will change my belief. That tonality helps people buy into your products and services, you got to leverage maximum tonality on every call, on every demo, on every pitch. It's absolutely critical. It's just not what you say. It's how you say it. How can two people say the exact same thing, but one books 10 appointments a day, and the other books zero. It's all because they mastered the script. It's all because they're leveraging tonality. They're doing whatever it takes to make it happen. And when you're practicing all of these scripts, you can really focus on the tonality, you can focus on the connection with the audience, you can focus on winning, you could listen to right, you call very calmly confident, and in a comfortable manner, &nbsp;because you're listening and you're listening to help them solve their problems so that they win in sales.

Pete Rock There is a question, it takes up to six calls before a prospect turns into a sale. Is this true?Brandon Bornancin Great question. So, Cherry asked, it can take up to six calls for a prospect to turn into a sale. I’ve seen 52 calls, you know, I believe in sales. Great question. By the way Cherry. Thanks. Thanks for asking it and thank you all, for all you for tuning in to the presentation today. Love that you're engaging and interacting with the chat. So, here's the deal. Yeah, it could take six, it could take 1, it could take 50. Just play the long game, like sales is a marathon, not a sprint. Focus on delivering value to your prospects, helping them change their lives forever, for the better. And over time, when there's a need for them for your products and services, they will reach out to you, or the next time you hit them up, they will be interested. Like the goal is how do I create an editorial calendar of a year 365 days where every other day, every three days, I'm dropping value, I'm dropping knowledge, I'm helping them change their life forever, for the better. So, it can take a long time, but could also take a short time. I've spent hundreds of 1000s of dollars on a cold call, cold visit. You know whether it's software technology, cars, houses, like you name it, big deal, small deals, they could take one call, they could take 100 calls. It's funny, sometimes people will spend more time on a super low-ticket deal than they actually will on a large deal. And you could sell the large deals faster and easier than you could the small deals. Because the people are they're spending very little money. They're overanalyzing that every second of every day because they don't have a lot of money. But you go to them, you pitch them, whatever you've got, you showcase the value, I think it's all about creating the urgency, the value, the results, the pain that you could eliminate or deliver. And then that will maximize their interest in working with you.All right, RCVSIC. So, this is how I recommend you write and develop all of your pitches. So, when you're developing all of your pitches, RCVSIC, is the best way to write all of your scripts, whether it's cold calls, emails, social touches, you name it.So, number one, R, is research. You want to research the contact in the company before you reach out to him, before you hit him up on email, call whatever number to compliment. We talked a lot about this. C, in the RCVSIC, the C stands for the compliment you want to drop about the context of the company. The first sentence of your email, or the first sentence of your social message. There's always something that a company is doing. That is awesome. Bring that to light, bring it to the forefront, talk about it and bring it up. Everyone's got something special. So mentioned the compliment. V stands for value proposition, you want to deliver a compelling life-changing value proposition statement, we help x do y without w or l like where x equals the persona. Y equals the biggest desired result. W equals pain one z equals pain two, you know so like we help x do Y without W or Z.We help sales development reps flood their calendar or back-to-back appointments on the hour every hour without wasting half their day on manual list building or endless CRM data entry. Like that would be a way that I would write a value proposition if I was selling Seamless to SDRs. You want to deliver a compelling life-changing value prop statement in all of your outreach. Next, the fourth part of the perfect sales pitch and perfect sales email is S, social proof, and credibility. Your logos, social proof, are like the case studies. This is the result. So, show social proof is the logos, the case studies, the success stories, the testimonials, you want to drop a bunch of these after you pitch the value proposition. And then next, I always recommend saving the introduction for last. Like no one cares about you or me. Like, all they care about is themselves - what's in it for me? “WIIFM, I love to tune in that radio station, by the way, Pete Rock, I tune in WIIFM every day of the week.” What's in it for me when people call me to pitch me unnecessary things, like, what is in it for me? What is it for my company? What is it for my people? Why should I invest my time, my energy, my capital, my resources, you know anything, why my headspace, in learning more? So, when you're writing the RCVSIC perfect email pitch, perfect sales pitch, I always recommend saving the introduction for last, because no one gives a shit about you or your name or your company, they only care about what you can do for them.So, this way, though, when it's at the end of the script after you get them hooked with the compliment, and the research and the value prop and the social proof, then they're going to be interested in learning more. And they're gonna be like, who is this person? Like, how do they know so much about me? And how do they know how to change my business forever for the better, I got to reach out to them and then boom, you hit him with the intro, your contact info. And then lastly, call to action is the C in RCVSIC, C stands for one call to action. Don't ask them for an appointment, their contact info to download a white paper, don't ask them to do multiple things. Just one call to action. Hey, let's pencil in a quick chat. When you are available. Hey, let me get you a free trial of the software. Here's the link. Hey, here's the white paper, you name it, just one call to action. And then they'll be off to the races. And when you leverage the research to compliment the value proposition, the social proof, the introduction, the call to action - your conversion rates are going to skyrocket. Because every single person that reads your emails, reads your outreach, they're going to be highly interested in meeting with you to learn more. So, in conclusion to the 10 secrets that helped us book over 50,000 something appointments, I have my Salesforce guy pull this yesterday.Number one, reverse engineer your goals. Number two, get cell phones for all of your prospects. They're not changing their numbers, get on a platform like Seamless.AI for free to do that. Number three when you're calling these prospects, leverage the 17-second call opener. Number four, drop a voicemail on every call, every outreach. Number five, save all the email signatures and get that auto imported into your CRM. Make sure you never miss an important contact ever again, you could use seamless, or you know copy and paste it, whatever works best for you. Number six, if you can't connect with them, the cell phone the email, whatever, call a colleague, phone a colleague, work around them, figure out what you need to do to get that referral. Get in touch with them no matter what. Number seven, the double callback, you call it immediately goes to voicemail or is ignored, call back again. See if that works. Number eight, you got a master leverage, get excited about using sales scripts. Also, you want to write sales scripts for all of the sales objections that you ever encounter. Number nine tonality, so now it's not what you say. But it's how you say it. You got to know how to say it. And then lastly, our RCVSIC to book the meetings, leverage this formula, our RCVSIC in all of your templates and all of your outreach and all of your calls, your emails, your social touches, research, compliment, value prop social proof, introduction and then add the call to action - RCVSIC.That's it, everyone. Hey, thank you so much for tuning in to today's session with your host Brandon Bornancin, CEO and founder of Seamless.ai. As a special gift for tuning in, I want to help you find emails, cell phones, and insights for every single person in the world that you need to sell to, I want to help you automate all of the endless list building of your prospects. Your CRM data entry, your appointment setting work. Go to seamless.ai for free, and use the referral code.Accelerate our friends here, got you set up with a ton of accounts for free, they're gonna hook you up, go to a seamless.ai, type in the coupon code accelerate, you'll get a free account, a bunch of credits, and you're off to the races. Thank you for tuning in. Brandon Bornancin, your host. By the way, don't forget if you'd like to learn more, pick up a few of these books on Amazon. These are our number one bestseller sales secrets. We've interviewed over 100 sales experts on their secrets to success. Pick up this book today. You've got seven figures for social selling, all of the secrets to making millions in sales, leveraging LinkedIn. And then lastly, whatever it takes to master the habits to transform your business, relationship, and life. Your mindset will push you to be able to achieve the dream to be able to generate more sales than you ever thought was possible. The mindset represents 80% of a deal and 80% of a sale. So that book will show how you can do whatever it takes to achieve massive success. Thank you for tuning in all. Appreciate all of you.David Youngblood ‍Absolutely amazing session. Brandon, thanks so much for joining. Alright, everyone. We are going to go to the lobby, get ready to transition for our next session.&nbsp;

Head over here to watch more Accelerate 2021 talks: <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Go!</a>

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Brandon Bornancin - 10 secrets to booking 51,927 meetings and how you can too | Accelerate 2021

It’s 2022 and Outplay’s virtual office is bustling with energy and excitement over the new year.What’s happening at our office? Oh, the usual -New employees are getting a virtual tour of the product, culture, and people; teams are freeing up their packed calendars to speak to either prospects or long-term customers; everyone’s looking at the new quarter’s targets - getting ready to unveil new features.2021 was quick and long at the same time. It flew past us, but mostly it felt like we were reliving the same day over and over again. Kind of like groundhog day, don’t you think? But as much as we got settled into our routine, this year brought in a lot of changes and challenges.When we look back, here’s how 2021 was for Outplay and the team.

<h1>Funding after funding&nbsp;</h1>In March 2021, we were overjoyed when we found out that we had just bagged $2 million as the seed funding from Sequoia India’s Surge program. And this happened within just a year of starting Outplay. But what left us stunned was when we received our Series A funding from Sequoia capital itself, in July 2021 - i.e. just 4 months after getting our seed funding. We raised our spirits along with $7.3 million in this round.

The increased trust from our customers and investors only pushed us to outperform ourselves and help our existing/ future users outplay easily.&nbsp;SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/announcing-our-series-a-funding-from-sequoia/?__hstc=159041573.ee1db8bfa33c2e4ba535b9b5fdfdebe4.1672724364300.1673162260037.1673234107681.17&amp;__hssc=159041573.73.1673234107681&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">ANNOUNCING OUR SERIES A FUNDING FROM SEQUOIA!</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;<h1>Hitting the lucky number 100</h1>At Outplay, we appreciate every ounce of feedback that we get from our customers. At the end of a challenging day, reading our customers’ testimonials and reviews really puts a smile on our faces and gets us ready &amp; recharged for the next day.

And so, our customer success team has always ensured to get feedback from our customers, so that we’re aware of what they like about Outplay and where we can improve. Seeing Outplay touch 100 reviews on G2 (a popular review platform) helped us get into our customers’ minds and discover that we’re really making a stark difference in the sales world.&nbsp;

2021 gave us a chance to truly understand what our customers thought about Outplay and what more we could do for them. We didn’t just take G2 by storm, it was also raining reviews on sites like Capterra, TruePilot, and PipeDrive.Thanks to the immense love from our customers, we were voted as ‘Momentum leader’, ‘High-performer’, ‘Easiest to do business with’, and other powerful titles for the year 2021.&nbsp;Want to read some G2 reviews? Find them <a href="https://www.g2.com/products/outplay/reviews#reviews">here</a>.

<h1>Our chrome extension takes off&nbsp;</h1>As a sales engagement platform, we understand the importance of prospecting quickly and accurately. And as a sales rep, you need to pull yourself away from time-consuming tasks.We wanted our customers to experience a faster way of prospecting, where they could capture prospects with a single click - without going back and forth between several tabs.

Thus, we introduced our Chrome extension - <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/outplay-connect/jfjbcckhglfamaagobaibpjmnibmooko#:~:text=Navigator%20and%20Salesforce.-,Outplay%20Connect%20enables%20users%20to%20easily%20engage%20with%20prospects%20across,from%20anywhere%20on%20Chrome%20browser.">Outplay connect</a>! Customers could now add more meetings to the pipeline and increase their productivity rate - all in a flash.You can verify/send emails, gather prospect data, and perform a lot more solely using our chrome extension.

SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/introducting-outplay-connect-the-new-chrome-extension-by-outplay/?__hstc=159041573.ee1db8bfa33c2e4ba535b9b5fdfdebe4.1672724364300.1673162260037.1673234107681.17&amp;__hssc=159041573.73.1673234107681&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">INTRODUCING OUTPLAY CONNECT, THE NEW CHROME EXTENSION BY OUTPLAY</a>&nbsp;<h1>We finally say hi: in person&nbsp;</h1>While working through a virtual office and speaking to your teammates through zoom calls or slack huddles, there always lies some curiosity in what it would be like to meet the entire team in person and wondering when the meet-up would actually take place.

Till the dates were finalized, every meeting would end with a routine question - “So, when is the company retreat?”October 2021 allowed us to plan the dates, places, and activities for the much-awaited retreat.Ouplayers met each other in Goa, India and the ones situated in the USA took a trip down to Miami, Florida! We bonded with each other, had our first in-person townhall, danced as much as we could, and went around places together.

We finally got to see the faces behind the screens and the retreat instilled a sense of belongingness - helping us come closer as a team.&nbsp;<h1 style="margin-left:0px;">It’s pouring integrations</h1>2021 welcomed a lot of integrations with Outplay - in an effort to make your lives easier. We wanted you to tie Outplay with your favorite tools and help you enhance your outreach.Here are the platforms we integrated with:<ul style="list-style-type:revert;"><li>Gong</li><li>Salesforce</li><li>Hubspot</li><li>Pipedrive</li><li>Zoho</li><li>Vidyard</li><li>Zapier</li></ul>Most of these have a native bi-directional integration with Outplay - letting your data get updated on both platforms simultaneously, hands-free.&nbsp;<h1 style="margin-left:0px;">SOC2 Compliance done and dusted</h1>Last year, Outplay successfully completed the System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type I audit. We have always ensured the safety of our customers' data and this was a validation of Outplay's commitment to its customers and users.A SOC 2 report is for organizations that store and process the information of their clients. This is a form of assurance to the customers that the information you hold is not available to anyone but the intended recipients.The entire team at Outplay ensured in completing the encryption and compliance within a few days. To make our system more secure and guarantee complete security of our customers’ data, we all joined hands together to finish the process as soon as possible. &nbsp;2022 might see us achieve SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance next!&nbsp;SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/outplay-is-soc2-type-1-compliant/?__hstc=159041573.ee1db8bfa33c2e4ba535b9b5fdfdebe4.1672724364300.1673162260037.1673234107681.17&amp;__hssc=159041573.73.1673234107681&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">OUTPLAY IS NOW SOC 2 TYPE I COMPLIANT</a>‍

<h1>Non-stop features&nbsp;</h1>We’re always ready to launch brand new features for our customers. Our roadmap not only includes the features that we’d like to launch as a company, but also the feature requests passed on by our existing users. After all, what is a product if it doesn’t solve the customers’ needs?

2021 let us expand our product and engineering team and also allowed us to bring in new features to the table.We introduced email alias, crowdsourced sequence library, bounced prospect reach-outs, call waiting notification, SSO with Okta, and so much more!Every month housed around 10 features or so, all of which helped our customers increase their productivity and conduct high-quality outreach.<h1>Accelerate&nbsp;</h1>In December, we conducted our first-ever virtual sales summit, called Accelerate. We welcomed some of the best sales coaches and leaders who shared their insights, secrets, and tips - helping the attendees go on a journey of sales development with them.

Each session was filled with a lot of information, takeaways, plenty of interaction between the speaker and the attendees, virtual booths for folks to speak to each other and build their connections. &nbsp;At the end of the summit, we saw a lot of positive reviews from folks about their experience with Accelerate. We saw happy speakers, satisfied attendees, and delighted Outplayers.&nbsp;If you want access to all the videos, go <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog&amp;__hstc=159041573.ee1db8bfa33c2e4ba535b9b5fdfdebe4.1672724364300.1673162260037.1673234107681.17&amp;__hssc=159041573.73.1673234107681&amp;__hsfp=1413747390">here</a>.&nbsp;<h1>Going from 10 to 70+&nbsp;</h1>We started with a small team of 10-15 employees. And now? Now we’re a team of 70+ Outplayers - hailing from different backgrounds, regions, and interests.We’re proud to see our team expanding so quickly, and this would only mean more ideas, better customer satisfaction, and inching closer to our company goal.Either through employee referrals or job postings, we’ve been hiring across teams, for various functions/roles. And recently, we conducted an offline hiring drive!Our team arrived in RGKUT Basar College, Telangana with an aim to hire the next set of Outplayers for the year 2022. We successfully selected 8 bright minds and offered them a role at Outplay in no time.Having more members on your team really makes you dance with joy and also know that you have more members who are ready to Outplay, with you.&nbsp;If you’d like to be a part of our vibrant team, now’s your chance. You can head over to our careers page and check if there’s a role that you could fit into: <a href="https://outplayhq.freshteam.com/jobs">Careers Page.</a>&nbsp;2021 was eventful for us. One year introduced a lot of changes and made us realize that we can climb the ladder of success easily, together. In 2022, we’ll see a lot more updates, transformations, and different ways in which each of us will be Outplaying.

2022, here we go!&nbsp;

2021 year-in-review | Outplay .jpeg

2021 year-in-review | Outplay

Accelerate 2021 is a 2-day virtual summit that features 15 speakers, including some of the most respected leaders from the sales tech industry and the most loved sales coaches we have all admired and learned from. Accelerate is on Dec 14th and 15th. <a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/301e9510-535c-11ec-93e9-f3711180024b?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Click here to register.</a>This is a blog series where we examine speakers from Accelerate. Today’s featured speaker is Daniel Disney - also known as The King of LinkedIn and Social Selling.Daniel Disney is the author of the best-selling book called ‘The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide.’ He is a master of using LinkedIn to its best capacity and has closed and won millions in revenue from LinkedIn-generated leads.Here’s an interview with him where he speaks about his sales journey and shares some wisdom for new beginners.‍Q. How do you think sales has changed over the past 5 years? What do you predict will happen in the next 5 years?‍Sales has changed a lot in many ways over the last 5 years, primarily in the way we can communicate with our prospects and customers. Gone are the days when just phone and email were the only tools that salespeople had. Now, they have social media, LinkedIn, video, text, and I'm sure many more are yet to come.The biggest changes that I can see happening over the next 5 years is the growth of video throughout the sales process, from prospecting, meetings to closing. Social media platforms used for B2B like LinkedIn will continue to evolve and create new opportunities. Plus, the rise in the personal brand will become a core part of every salesperson‍Q. What is the one piece of advice you'd like to give to people who are just starting out in sales?‍The one tip I would give is to learn and practice. Learn how to do your job from the best people out there, internally and externally, and then practice, practice, practice! The only way you'll ever master any part of sales is from experience and knowledge combined.Always keep learning and always keep practicing. Make more calls, send more emails, send more LinkedIn messages, the more you do the more you'll learn.‍Q. Can you tell us a bit about your greatest win in sales, something that still motivates you to date?Every win, every sale to me is a great achievement. But for me, the one thing that motivates me the most is what happens beyond the sale, and that's when the customer is satisfied with what I've sold them. When the customer is happy, that's when I truly feel successful and that is what motivates me to work harder than anyone else out there.‍Q. Okay, let’s pretend this is a cold call, what’s your go-to cold calling opener? :)‍I'll be completely honest, I haven't made a cold call in nearly 6 years now (all of my sales come from LinkedIn &amp; social selling) so I'm a little rusty!If I were to make a cold call now to sell my LinkedIn training programs, I'd probably start it like this -"Hi &lt;PROSPECT NAME&gt;, I was just looking through some of your team’s LinkedIn profiles and noticed quite a few of them were missing some key areas that could help them quite a lot (I'd then name a few folks of their team that I'd found on LinkedIn), do you have a spare minute or 2 and I can share them with you quickly?"‍Q. Can you give us some tips on how to create an impactful LinkedIn profile? How to stand out?‍Now, this is my area of expertise! There are a lot of ways you can level up your LinkedIn profile, but the few that are the most important are your profile photo, banner image, and summary. Here are my top tips:Profile photo - Ideally have it taken by a professional photographer, or get someone to take it on a decent smartphone, ideally against a plain colored wall.Banner image - This is your own personal billboard and should tell people straight away what you offer and how you help people.About section - There is a lot of room here to write, but the focus shouldn't be on you, it should be on THEM. Tell your prospects what it is that you can do for them, what problems do you solve, how do you solve them, and how you can help them.Here's a bonus extra tip, a new feature came out in 2021 yet the vast majority of people still haven't used it. You can now upload a 30-second cover story video into your profile photo. For salespeople the is the PERFECT opportunity to tell people what you do and how you might be able to help them.‍Q. What will you be talking about at Accelerate 2021?‍I'll be sharing my top 10 LinkedIn and social selling trends for 2022, the key areas I think salespeople and sales teams should be focusing on to get the best results next year.‍Q. A book that you recently read and would recommend to others?‍5 Minute Selling by Alex Goldfayn. If you’re in sales, then this is a great read for you.‍Daniel Disney is all set to speak at Accelerate and dive deeper into social selling for 2022. You don’t want to miss this session. Catch it in time by registering here: <a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/301e9510-535c-11ec-93e9-f3711180024b?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Save my seat!</a>

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Accelerate Spotlight: Daniel Disney

Accelerate 2021 is a 2-day virtual summit that features 15 speakers, including some of the most respected leaders from the sales tech industry and the most loved sales coaches we have all admired and learned from. Accelerate is on Dec 14th and 15th. <a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/301e9510-535c-11ec-93e9-f3711180024b?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Click here to register.</a>This is a blog series where we examine speakers from Accelerate. Today’s featured speakers are Ashleigh Early and Heidi Solomon-Orlick.Ashleigh Early, also known as ‘the other sales coach’ gives her all-in while building or re-building personalized inside sales or SDR programs. She’s also voted as one of the ‘top voices’ for the year 2021 by LinkedIn. Heidi, the recipient of two Gold Stevie awards and founder of 'GirlzWhoSell', is on a constant mission to squash the gender gap in sales, and empower women to pursue a career in sales.Here’s an interview with both the ladieswhere they speak about the shift in sales, give some advice for women, talk about their favorite book, and a lot more.‍Q. How do you think sales has changed over the past 5 years? What do you predict will happen in the next 5 years?Ashleigh Early (AE): The past 5 years have shown us that sales can be done remotely and that specialization can be a great differentiator in a crowded sales market. I think in the next 5 years we'll see an increased focus on long-term relationships and client retention over acquisition. This means that sales professionals who build a reputation for skill, trust and efficiency will be highly prized while teams and companies who prioritize volume and "brute force" will face some struggle.Heidi Solomon-Orlick(HS): Frankly, despite more technology, analytics, and moving to virtual conversations, I don't think sales has changed that much. &nbsp;What has made someone good at sales in the past is the same as it is now. &nbsp;Adding value, building trust, establishing strong relationships, problem-solving, active listening and EQ (to name a few) are skills that are as important today as they have been in the past and as they will be five years from now.We need to find the right messaging to encourage a customer to engage. &nbsp;There is a lot of noise out there, and so professional multi-channel communication and creative delivery of your message is going to be exponentially more important in order to break through the clutter.‍Q. What is the one piece of advice you'd like to give to people who are just starting out in sales?AE: Everyone thinks they're terrible at first and repeatedly wonders if this is the career for them. Give it time, focus on small skill improvements. Before you know it you'll be thriving!HS: Be curious and become a lifelong learner. If you can, enroll in a training program like GirlzWhoSell that will help you build your skills and engage sooner than later with a mento. Training will allow you to hit the ground running and meet and achieve your sales goals much faster. You will also become a highly sought-after candidate that has more leverage in negotiating the terms of your employment.‍Q. Can you tell us a bit about your greatest win in sales, something that still motivates you to date?AE: Several years ago I found out that 95% of the President's Club for the previous year were reps I had hired in the previous years, they had been promoted off my team. Anyone who embraces self-awareness, advocates for themselves, and puts in the skill work can thrive in this profession. It's magical to see how far some of my hires have gone in under a decade.HS: ​​Every win is great! Even after 31 years in B2B sales, I love the chase and I am thrilled when we are awarded a piece of business, especially in a highly competitive bid. That said, the one win that still motivates me is with a large telecommunications client.It took me over five years to close a deal but when I did, the contract was valued at $120 million annually and it generated over 1,000 jobs across the globe. That was worth waiting for! &nbsp;Those "pink elephants" don't come often in one's career but when they do....well there is no better feeling.‍Q. Okay, let’s pretend this is a cold call, what’s your go-to cold calling opener? :)AE: Here’s how I start - ‘How's your [DAY OF WEEK] going so far?’HS: So, instead of asking "did I catch you at a good time" ask "what did I catch you in the middle of?"‍Q. What part of the sales process is crucial to improve the win rates?AE: This is what I think is important. LISTENING to how the clients define their success.‍Q. What advice would you give women in sales who are just starting out?HS: In addition to the training and mentoring advice, I would also encourage women to apply for jobs even if they don't meet 100% of the listed qualifications. &nbsp;As Wayne Gretsky said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."‍Q. What will you be talking about at Accelerate 2021?HS: Ashleigh Early and I will host a "fireside chat" about diversity hiring. &nbsp;We will cover: &nbsp;Sourcing strategies to attract diverse talent, how to eliminate bias in the interviewing process plus decision-making criteria, and best practices around hiring and retaining women in sales.‍Q. A book that you recently read and would recommend to others?AE: I recently read ‘The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor.’ It’s on the seven principles of positive psychology that we can implement to improve our performance and develop our careers.HS: Machiavelli for Women: Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace by Stacey Vanek Smith.‍Heidi and Ashleigh are ready to take Accelerate by storm with their powerful talk! Make sure you don’t miss them and register for Accelerate quickly if you haven’t already: <a href="https://www.airmeet.com/e/301e9510-535c-11ec-93e9-f3711180024b?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Save my seat!</a>

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Accelerate Spotlight: Ashleigh Early & Heidi Solomon-Orlick

Accelerate 2021 is a 2-day virtual summit that features 15 speakers, including some of the most respected leaders from the sales tech industry and the most loved sales coaches we have all admired and learned from. Accelerate is on Dec 14th and 15th. <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Click here to register.</a>This is a blog series where we examine speakers from Accelerate. Today’s featured speaker is AJ Bruno, the CEO, and Co-founder at QuotaPath.AJ Bruno has an impressive record of being a commercial multi-engine pilot, an entrepreneur who has taken teams from 0-$25 million ARR, and the co-founder of QuotaPath - a powerful commission tracking/management application.Here’s an interview with AJ Bruno where he speaks about the shift in sales, his greatest win in sales, and a lot more.‍Q. How do you think sales has changed over the past 5 years? What do you predict will happen in the next 5 years?‍I would say individual contributors have more power now versus 5 years ago. Even though, as sales leaders, we create predictable A to Z sales methodology, a lot of individual sales reps are able to use tools that their coworkers or colleagues don't have access to. They are trying to one-up, or at least get ahead.And because of that, they treat their team more like a leaderboard. When you’re in the office, it's very easy to do an over-the-shoulder check-in on your colleagues to see what people are using and share those types of tools. I think people who were traditionally inside sales teams, who are working from home are able to work in a completely different manner than they were when they were in the office.As for the next 5 years, I think there's going to be a mass commoditization of sales tech tools and basically a mass consolidation of best practices. I think of sales tech a little bit like MarTech in 2010 to 2013, where you had tools coming out for account-based marketing and people were trying to figure out what they meant. I see something similar with product-led sales and the rise within that industry.‍Q. What is the one piece of advice you'd like to give to people who are just starting out in sales?‍Don't take anything for granted. I think it's a good time to start in sales, but markets quickly change and move. So don't get too comfortable, always be ready to learn and strive to get better.‍Q. Can you tell us a bit about your greatest win in sales, something that still motivates you to date?‍Well first off, convincing my wife to marry me. That was quite the sale. But seriously, there are a few different types of wins that I think about: there’s individual sales, management, and then there's company-wide sales. For company-wide, that’s easy - my first million-dollar month at my last company, TrendKite. I think about that month a lot, how we got there, and what it meant for the long term.‍Q. Okay, let’s pretend this is a cold call, what’s your go-to cold calling opener? :)‍I try not to speak as fast as I typically speak and I try to level set a little bit. My go-to is really just to bring a little bit of credibility to it. So I think I would typically start with -“Hey, I'm the Founder and CEO of a company called QuotaPath...” I start with that line just so it doesn't feel like a typical cold call. I want to be clear that there's a very specific reason that I’m reaching out to them. Because I wouldn't be wasting my time if it wasn’t important.‍Q. How can you onboard sales reps quickly and efficiently? Is it possible?‍I think you just need a really bad-ass enablement team and do that early on. Often I equate this to RevOps. 5 years ago, that was a role that not a lot of early-stage startups or companies included. I think sales enablement is something similar today.You have all these different remote teams - SDRs, new businesses, customer success teams, account management, etc. Getting them all to speak the same language is going to become more and more difficult.‍Q. What will you be talking about at Accelerate 2021?‍At Accelerate, I’ll be diving deep into the ‘SDR Compensation’‍Q. A book that you recently read and would recommend to others?‍I just read Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets. I'd recommend that to everyone. With thousands and thousands of startups coming into the marketplace every year, category creation and design are more important now than ever, if you want to create a differentiated company.‍Catch AJ Bruno live on the 14th - 15th of December! This is a session you don’t want to miss. Register now, you still have time: <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Save my seat!</a>

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Accelerate Spotlight: AJ Bruno

Accelerate 2021 is a 2-day virtual summit that features 15 speakers, including some of the most respected leaders from the sales tech industry and the most loved sales coaches we have all admired and learned from. Accelerate is on Dec 14th and 15th. <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Click here to register</a>.&nbsp;This is a blog series where we examine speakers from Accelerate. Today’s featured speaker is Jason Bay, known as the ‘Outbound sales coach’ who's the Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting.Jason Bay, also famously known as JBay, gives his all in to help sales folks level up their sales skills and help them land more meetings through effective outreach. He’s also a reputed member of ‘Modern Sales Pros’ - the world’s largest community for leaders in sales.Here’s an interview with Jason where he speaks about the future of sales, advice for the people starting out in sales, and a lot more.&nbsp;

Q. How do you think sales has changed over the past 5 years? What do you predict will happen in the next 5 years?&nbsp;Well, the obvious change has been a shift towards a virtual selling environment. Inside salespeople are used to this. But your prospects are not. They're much more comfortable meeting online, using videos, and so, the bar is much higher. Other than that, the same principles still apply and will continue to apply for the next five years as well. Be laser-focused in the companies you're going after, know your personas inside and out, use customer-centric messaging, go for multi-channel outreach, and be able to handle your top 3-5 objections. This is never going out of style.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Q. What is the one piece of advice you'd like to give to people who are just starting out in sales?&nbsp;Soak up every ounce of knowledge you can about who you're selling to. Get very granular and pay close attention to the typical goals/priorities of your prospects. And then towards the problems that get in their way. Take detailed notes during sales calls, record them, and listen to your AE's calls as well. You should have a library full of notes about the patterns you notice across similar prospects. This kind of information will help you scale your sales process.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Q. Can you tell us a bit about your greatest win in sales, something that still motivates you to date?&nbsp;My biggest win was landing my first big enterprise client, Zoom!&nbsp;&nbsp;

Q. Okay, let’s pretend this is a cold call, what’s your go-to cold calling opener? :)&nbsp;"Hey ______, this is Jason with Blissful Prospecting. I know I probably caught you in the middle of something. But do you have a minute for me to tell you why I'm calling? And then you can let me know if you want to keep chatting?"This works nearly every time.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Q. While writing an outbound sequence, what do you think a sales rep should avoid talking about?&nbsp;Your product! Do not talk about specific features of your product. The prospect does not care because they don't speak the language of your product. You should start the conversation in their world first: i.e. talking about their priorities/goals and the problems that get in their way. Oh, and stop talking about how awesome your company is.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Q. What will you be talking about at Accelerate 2021?&nbsp;So, at Accelerate, I’ll be speaking on ‘Why outbound is a game of odds and how to dramatically improve them’&nbsp;&nbsp;

Q. A book that you recently read and would recommend to others?&nbsp;‘Thinking In Bets’ by Annie Duke. Not a sales book, but a great approach that gets you to think about sales.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jason Bay is all geared up for Accelerate - an event featuring some of the best sales leaders and coaches. Tune in on the 14th to hear Jason give some actionable advice and tips. If you still haven’t registered, now’s your chance: <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Save my seat!</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Accelerate Spotlight: Jason Bay

Accelerate 2021 is a 2-day virtual summit that features 15 speakers including some of the most respected leaders from the sales tech industry and the most loved sales coaches we have all admired and learned from. Accelerate is on Dec 14th and 15th. <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Click here to register</a>.This is a blog series where we interview speakers from Accelerate. Today’s featured speaker is Kris Rudeegraap, the CEO and Co-Founder of Sendoso.Kris comes with years of experience in the sales industry and has held various leadership roles in sales. Along with running one of the best sending platforms, he also performs the duties of being an advisor to numerous companies and helps them along the way.Here’s an interview with Kris where he talks about his views on the future of sales, tips on how to make a buyer’s journey smooth, his topic for Accelerate, and a lot more.

I can see the inclusion of automation and AI in a lot of things, in sales. Many tasks can now be automated, thus, eliminating manual work. I think that new/underutilized channels will emerge in the near future. We’ll get to witness lots of sales tech tools and M&amp;A over the next few years.

Standing out from the crowd is really essential in sales. You can do that by making creativity your secret weapon. By applying creativity/personalization to your outreach you can easily attract more prospects.

My greatest sale would be my very first sale and our first customer at Sendoso. This was around 5 years ago.

This is what I usually go for, which is simple and effective:&nbsp;Hey {name} ! It's {yourname} from {company}, I saw that {research}, have you thought about the {idea}?

I would suggest mapping out the buyer’s journey in a detailed manner and updating it. Most GTM teams don't do this.

At Accelerate, I’ll be talking about ‘What will Sales Development strategies look like in 2022 (and beyond)?’ I’ll be covering how you can take your traditional outreach tactics to the next level with a personalized approach and drive impactful revenue to ensure your team hits (or exceeds) their numbers each quarter.

A book that I found very insightful is ‘No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention’. It’s written by Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings. A great read to understand how the founder of Netflix created a company that went through various stages, the efficient company culture at Netflix, and more.&nbsp;Kris is ready to speak at Accelerate which is on the 14th of December! Hope you’re pumped and ready for this too. If you haven’t registered yet, you still have time: <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Save my seat!</a>

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Accelerate Spotlight: Kris Rudeegraap

Accelerate 2021 is a 2-day virtual summit that features 15 speakers including some of the most respected leaders from the sales tech industry and the most loved sales coaches we have all admired and learned from. Accelerate is on Dec 14th and 15th. <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Click here to register.</a>This is a blog series where we interview speakers from Accelerate. Today’s featured speaker is David Dulany, the CEO, and Founder of Tenbound.David Dulany started Tenbound with an aim to solely focus on sales development - an area that still lacks expertise. With Tenbound, he pushes to provide sales consultation, training, and development - everything that’ll help the sales rep hit their pipeline on time. He’s also the host of the #1 sales development podcast on iTunes, which is filled with insights from the top sales leaders.Here’s a short interview with David, to understand his views on the future of sales, his greatest win, and the topic he’ll be covering during Accelerate 2021.&nbsp;Q. How do you think sales has changed over the past 5 years? What do you predict will happen in the next 5 years? Over the last 5 years, technology has enabled sales professionals to automate many of the time-consuming and frustrating tasks of the past and has allowed people to free up their time to focus on higher-value activities. At Tenbound, we see this trend continuing, to the point where the drudgery of activities such as sorting, researching, and prospecting is taken on more and more by software and outsourced systems, letting salespeople focus even more on the human elements and soft skills that help them truly accelerate their personal growth and sales numbers. Ironically, technology will help people become more human.&nbsp;Q. What is the one piece of advice you'd like to give to people who are just starting out in sales? Set out to become an expert - know everything around your customers. Make it your mission to learn everything - their industry, about their company, and the main pain points they deal with on a daily basis. Understand their critical "jobs to be done" and unpack all the pain points they deal with in order to get those done. Deeply understand the vocabulary they use to describe those pain points. From that understanding, you’ll develop empathy for what they are going through, and be able to help them in the best way possible - the value you can provide after they purchase your product/service!&nbsp;Q. Can you tell us a bit about your greatest win in sales, something that still motivates you to date? I used to work at a sales training company. Yes, I was selling sales training. So, of course, we had to take all the courses, and there were a lot of them. They were all classroom-style courses, most of them included 2 or 3 days of consecutive training. Being early in my career this was tough to sit through. The training was very specific and prescriptive. We're talking about memorizing exact scripts, similar questions, doing the process exactly as it's taught by the trainer. It felt very restrictive.However, after a few months of this, it became a part of my process, almost second nature. With one client, I took them through the entire sales process using the exact skills. I followed the process, used the scripts, the questions, the closing process, and, shazam, it all worked! The prospect became my biggest customer. For years. I was almost surprised; I used it again and again and it worked!&nbsp; Q. Okay, let’s pretend this is a cold call, what’s your go-to cold calling opener? :)"I'm so glad I caught you- you are so hard to get a hold of!"Everyone likes to feel important and special. They want to feel wanted and appreciated. Genuinely tell them how happy you are that they picked up. Very few people actually answer random calls anymore. It's great news that they answered!Remember, your prospects are probably stressed out, busy, bored, sick, etc. Just assume they're having a bad day and do your best to help improve it a little bit.Never come in weak or apologize for calling, ever. You're the best thing that happened to them all day!&nbsp; Q. What are some pointers to never miss while ramping up an SDR?Time block your day with proactive sales activities. Otherwise the day sort of blends together into a swirl, especially while working from home. You start out all excited to hit the phone and research top accounts - and next thing you know you're ‘Netflix and Chilling’ at 9:34 AM.Instead, time block your calls, emails, follow-ups, research, and then calls again into 90-minute sprints. Even time block veg time. Give yourself permission to zone out for a while, then get back to it. The difference between winners and losers is winners actually get back to it, even when they don't want to.&nbsp; Q. What will you be talking about at Accelerate 2021?So at Accelerate, I’ll be talking about - ‘The Amazing SDR Trifecta’ You can find more about it <a href="https://tenbound.com/the-amazing-sdr-trifecta/">here</a>.&nbsp; Q. A book that you recently read and would recommend to others?Oh, that would be ‘The Sales Development Framework’ by David Dulany and Kyle Vamvouris :)Want to hear more from David Dulany? Make sure you’ve registered for Accelerate! Catch him on the 14th of December: <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Save my seat!</a>

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Accelerate Spotlight: David Dulany

Accelerate 2021 is here - Outplay’s first-ever 2-day virtual summit that’s featuring some of the biggest sales leaders that you all look up to.Introducing our first speaker - Shruti Kapoor, the CEO, and Co-founder of Wingman! If you’re in sales, you might already be familiar with Wingman and how it’s quite literally the perfect ‘wingman’ that helps you impress the prospect and get them interested to book another meeting with you.Shruti Kapoor believes that a good conversation can easily result in a better sale. Thus, came Wingman - a tool that could monitor and measure each conversation with the prospect and provide real-time insights for the sales reps to understand how they can perform better. Learning what worked and what didn’t is very important while conducting a call review, and Wingman is here to help with just that.We spoke to Shruti Kapoor to understand her views on sales, some tips, and what topic she’ll be speaking on at Accelerate.Q. How do you think sales has changed over the past 5 years? What do you predict will happen in the next 5 years?I feel that sales hasn't changed as much as people had expected it to, 5 years back. 5 years back reps were still entering data into the CRM, and they are doing the same today. So there’s really not much of a stark difference. Also, pipeline reviews (a meeting between a sales rep and manager to discuss the status of pending deals and how to overcome them) were weekly activities then, and they’re conducted similarly today.Talking about the next 5 years, I think we will see quite a few things in sales:1. Speed will become an important aspect of sales2. Most of the non-productive tasks will get eliminated3. Information and intelligence will be more push-basedQ. What is the one piece of advice you'd like to give to people who are just starting out in sales?You shouldn’t view technologies just as an ancillary but it should be considered as your iron-man suit - your super-power.Q. Can you tell us a bit about your greatest win in sales, something that still motivates you to date?That would be my first cold outreach to close!Q. Okay, let’s pretend this is a cold call, what’s your go-to cold calling opener? :)I would start with something as simple as ‘’Hey Paul, how are you doing?’’Q. Can you give us a few tips on how to get through customers and what can you do to avoid being ghosted?The best way to avoid being ignored is to get into an anti-ghosting agreement upfront at the end of your discovery call. Tell the customer "Can I ask you something? I understand that your priorities might change during the course of our interaction, can I request you to let me know in case that happens and not ghost me :)"What will you be talking about at Accelerate 2021?At Accelerate, I’ll be talking about how to work around your customer objections, which are faced by sales reps at every stage. My topic is ‘Customer Objections - Opportunity NOT Obstacle’Catch Shruti Kapoor on the 14th and 15th of December! And if you still haven’t registered for Accelerate, now’s your chance: <a href="https://accelerate.outplayhq.com/?utm_campaign=Accelerate&amp;utm_source=Blog">Save my seat!</a>See you soon!

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Accelerate Spotlight: Shruti Kapoor

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What if they say ‘No?'What if the deal falls through the cracks?What if they don’t react well to my call?What if I fail to meet my daily/monthly targets?This and a lot more is what’s always running in any sales rep’s mind. WHAT IF - a simple statement that can wreck a rep’s confidence and make them question their hard work.While racing against time - trying to beat the odds by crushing their monthly targets, sales reps fight through a lot of obstacles which gives rise to a good deal of pressure and anxiety.While it is exciting to deal with the adrenaline rush when you’re about to close a deal, at the same time the amount of panic and stress that comes with it, shouldn’t be ignored AT ALL.To understand how reps across regions and companies tackle anxiety while trying to maintain their quota, we speak to 4 sales reps who are strong believers in recognizing, speaking up, and managing anxiety in sales.

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanpatterson/">EVAN PATTERSON</a>(EP): There’s a mental health crisis in the sales community. Too many people often see discussing one’s mental health as an indicator of being weak, sloppy, or inefficient. However, sustainable success in sales is truly attainable when mental health is discussed openly and actively prioritized. It’s good for people and it’s equally good for their business.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shefaligjain/">SHEFALI JAIN</a>(SJ): Yes, actually. It is often sidelined. Everyone is busy chasing targets because of which you don't realize that you're stressed or going through something.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliottgarcia/">ELLIOTT GARCIA</a>(EG): &nbsp;I think it’s often discussed, not as frequently though. But it’s brought up.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/manthanrgupta/">MANTHAN GUPTA</a>(MG): I personally feel that because of the pandemic and isolation, mental health has become a widely discussed topic. People who weren’t talking about it before, are talking about it now. So comparatively it has changed a lot. Pre-covid I’ve seen that people didn’t discuss it that openly. We still have a long way to go, but I’m glad that sales leaders now have started to speak about it.

SJ: Yes absolutely! We do talk about it to make each other feel comfortable. This has now become a post-work regime.EG: They do, yes. I’m glad that my peers are ready to talk about it freely.MG: I think there are very few folks who are open to talking about it. But I know that almost everyone in sales goes through it, people don’t know how to broach the subject or express what they’re going through to someone else. But at the same time, I’ve had an open conversation about this with some of my colleagues.

SJ: Actually, no activity makes ME uneasy. But the fact that you're in the middle of the month and haven't hit 50% of your targets yet - this is something every sales rep goes through and most of us face anxiety here.EG: Interesting, I think I would have to say reaching past 100 dials every time, and if I’m still at 75 or at 80, I guess that adds some amount of pressure/stress.MG: Everybody feels the anxiety and awkwardness in sales. For me, I feel cold calling makes me very anxious because you don’t know how the responses will be on the other end. Or even when you’re just waiting for a prospect to respond! A lot of practice/research will help you submerge a bit of anxiety, but even if you do practice a thousand times, you’re still going to feel a little anxious - this happens to sales leaders too.

SJ: Music helps a lot. Plus, I have a couple of colleagues that I connect with on a daily, post-work basis - so that helps. It's also important to have an empathizing work culture/boss. My boss is the best human I've met (quite literally) and he ensures that I'm fine; if I express that I'm not. Apart from this, I also work out when I'm anxious. Breathing exercises, getting some air helps too!EG: Well, I work out 5 days a week - so exercise helps me keep my anxiety at a distance. Other than that, I make sure I never miss a few sips of tea in the night. This helps me fall asleep easily.MG: I love tea! At night, I’m all about green tea and in the morning I start my day with a bit of milk in my tea. The second would be music - listening to it and also playing it(love playing my uke or guitar)! Oh not to forget meditation. Because of the lockdown, I started meditating as well. It’s a really good way to deal with stress or any ups and downs.

EP: Well, poor mental health is bad for your own bottom line as well as your businesses. At the end of the day, investment and discussion surrounding mental health are absolutely necessary. Prioritizing your physical surroundings, having a good hold on your time management skills, taking a break when you can, or even focusing on activities like music, diet, and exercise will help you take your mind off stress-filled tasks. Whatever you do with your body and free time has a massive impact on your work life too!

SJ: It is both this and that, I believe. You might feel okay when you talk to someone but it creeps back in. It just helps when you know you can talk to someone, be it, friends or colleagues. Feels good to know that someone’s out there who can understand almost every bit of what you’re going through. But again, it’s an inner fight in the end.

MG: Very frequently. You’re always thinking about prospects - what you spoke on a call or you always end up thinking that you could have handled something differently. You must focus on something else. You need one or two different addictions, like photography, music (for me) to get away from sales. I love editing on lightroom, taking pictures, playing my instruments! Everyone should have one thing that they love doing other than sales.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:68.13%;"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/manthan_7e4b61a07a.jpeg" alt="manthan .jpeg" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_manthan_7e4b61a07a.jpeg 104w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_manthan_7e4b61a07a.jpeg 333w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_manthan_7e4b61a07a.jpeg 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_manthan_7e4b61a07a.jpeg 666w," sizes="100vw"></figure>The above image is taken by Manthan Gupta :)

&nbsp;Recognizing what you’re feeling and giving it a tag is very important in managing any stress or anxiety. In a field where numbers are almost everything and time is of the essence, taking care of yourself as well as your peer’s stress levels will only help you move forward.Let’s show love and care to each other! 💖

How sales reps deal with anxiety in sales

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Hiring a bunch of great SDRs can help you climb your ladder to success faster. Since they are the first ones to form a connection with a prospect, hiring in the wrong direction can actually tank your company’s reputation in a second. One interaction can bid goodbye to the prospect, and witness a lost opportunity.Thus, hiring inefficient SDRs can be costly and burn your business. Hiring the perfect SDR might be a huge task, but there are a few things that will help you know that they are ‘THE ONE.’ Here are a few skills/traits to look for and what you can do to hire the best of the best.‍<h1>1. Your ideal SDR</h1><figure class="image"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Imag_1_1516759174.png" alt="Imag 1.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Imag_1_1516759174.png 156w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Imag_1_1516759174.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Imag_1_1516759174.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Imag_1_1516759174.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;The way you work on your ideal customer profile, in a similar sense, you must work on an ideal SDR profile. This can contain the personality traits and skills you want your SDR to possess and you can also include their preferred background or estimated target that you wish for them to achieve.After this, you can design a job description and requirement for your ideal candidate. This will help you eliminate the candidates who do not match your desired description.‍<h1>2. A curious cat</h1><figure class="image"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_2_20b56f8e12.png" alt="Image 2.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_2_20b56f8e12.png 156w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_2_20b56f8e12.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Image_2_20b56f8e12.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Image_2_20b56f8e12.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;A curious SDR is always ready to ask questions in order to understand the problem or product better, and they’re genuinely interested in the company. During the interview, pay close attention to the kind of questions they ask. How relevant are they? How interested are they to learn more about the company?This also helps in realizing how much attention the SDR pays to the conversation. If they’re a good listener and ask all the right questions, that means they can easily convert a cold lead into a hot one with their relevant questions and attentiveness.‍<h1>3. A skilled machine</h1><figure class="image"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_3_d680ad8289.png" alt="Image 3.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_3_d680ad8289.png 156w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_3_d680ad8289.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Image_3_d680ad8289.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Image_3_d680ad8289.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;An SDR has to be a master of many hats. If the candidate shows that they’re experienced in most of the key skills, training them becomes a piece of cake. Here are a couple of skills you can look for:<ul><li>Overcoming objections</li><li>Expert listener</li><li>Asking discovery questions</li><li>Evaluating the right point of contact for a prospect</li><li>Ability to learn and become a product expert</li><li>Taking criticism constructively</li><li>Motivated and a drive to crush the targets</li></ul>These skills can also be evaluated during the interview process by giving the candidates a few hypothetical scenarios and then assessing how they would respond to them. You can give them tasks such as writing an outreach email, recording a voicemail, or do a customer-SDR role-play with them to evaluate their skills.‍SUGGESTED WEBINAR: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/webinars/hire-and-enable-sdrs-fast?utm_campaign=Hiring%20and%20enabling%20SDRs%20webinar&amp;utm_source=Blog&amp;utm_content=What%20to%20look%20for%20when%20hiring%20an%20SDR%20-%20Blog">HOW TO HIRE EXCEPTIONAL SDRS AND ENABLE THEM TO SUCCEED FAST</a>‍<h1>4. A perfect match for your company goals</h1><figure class="image"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_4_d5ed9af394.png" alt="Image 4.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_4_d5ed9af394.png 154w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_4_d5ed9af394.png 494w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;While hiring a bunch of SDRs, you need to make sure that it aligns with the company-wide goals as well. Depending on your quarterly target, estimated revenue generation, or even the number of accounts/prospects you’d like to pursue, etc.You can decide the number of SDRs you need and shortlist the candidates that have the skills that can help you achieve the company goal.‍<h1>5. Evaluate them based on their answers</h1><figure class="image"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_5_b48280a8f7.png" alt="Image 5.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_5_b48280a8f7.png 156w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_5_b48280a8f7.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Image_5_b48280a8f7.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Image_5_b48280a8f7.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;Make a list of questions that will help you determine if the candidate you interview will be a great fit or not. Note down questions around different situations or questions that’ll help you assess their traits.Rank these questions based on their importance and then start scoring the candidate for their answers. This will help you evaluate all the candidates numerically as well.‍<h1>6. Are they culturally correct?</h1><figure class="image"><img src="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Image_6_8c1c2cebe0.png" alt="Image 6.png" srcset="https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/thumbnail_Image_6_8c1c2cebe0.png 156w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/small_Image_6_8c1c2cebe0.png 500w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/medium_Image_6_8c1c2cebe0.png 750w,https://outplayhq-staging-uploads.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/large_Image_6_8c1c2cebe0.png 1000w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;Ask them questions that’ll help you know them on a personal level. This round can be conducted like an open conversation where the candidate can also ask questions to learn about the company culture. Here are a few questions you can ask:<ul><li>What is your ideal work environment?</li><li>Where do you see yourself in 5 years?</li><li>What do you like to do in your free time?</li><li>What excites you about being an SDR?</li></ul>Take this as an opportunity to speak at length about your company culture plus take note of what the candidate is looking for and if your company can provide a similar environment.

What to look for when hiring an SDR?

In the middle of my workday, there is nothing I like more than my inbox inundated with offers for low mortgage rates, a get-out-of-debt seminar, insurance offers, or even a great deal at a random yet questionable online pharmacy. If anyone had done their research, they would have known that I was not the target audience for their fabulous hair care products. And while we are at it, I haven’t entered the international lottery, so I find it strange to be pronounced a winner. No, I really don't like this - nobody does.So if we want to successfully build an instant connection and cut through the noise, we've got to pay attention to our target audience and find creative ways to use automation and best practices to do it at scale.Although this is definitely not the business model you and I are engaging in, I don’t ever want my channels and messaging to be perceived in the same "does not apply to me" way. &nbsp;Nobody wants to be spammed, so prospects recognize and appreciate when someone takes a personal interest in their business, their pain points, and has obviously done some research before making a connection.Human nature makes each of us naturally receptive to forming meaningful connections with others, but the world is fast-paced and the personal bandwidth (and inbox space!) is limited for the prospect, as well as for your sales teams. We want to be able to scale a large audience, but be personalized and target those who will be most responsive so we can ultimately book more meetings.How do we know it works?We ran an experiment across 3 sequences and thousands of prospects. The results are clear: #1 - 50% Personalization - pretty standard sequence #2- 100% Personalization - to a targeted list of companies #3- 100% Personalization - &nbsp;to active LinkedIn members The results - the LinkedIn community is on top of course! #3 wins with 143 Meetings booked #2 had 93 Meetings booked #1 only had 47 meetings booked Personalization at scale is the winner! &nbsp;Now that we know how effective it is, here are two ways to personalize at scale.‍<h1>Bucket Sequences</h1>Step 1: Identify the most common personalization traits you find about a prospect. Maybe it’s the launch of a new product, or they have posted a great video, or they just raised their Series A. Step 2: Create a sequence for each trait - name them accordingly “Recently Funded”, or “New Product launch”. Step 3: Write the first subject line to reflect that personalization: “{{firstname}}, congrats on your series A” Step 4: Write the first email body to match, “Hi {{firstname}}, Been following {{company}} on LinkedIn and saw the news about your Series A. We recently landed our own Series A, so I know how crazy exciting it can be. Outplay works with hundreds of recently funded companies to scale the team and pipeline to get to the magical 3x. So I’m curious - what tools have you provided the sales team to ensure that growth?Suggested Reading: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/blog/what-ingredients-make-a-great-outbound-email">What ingredients make a great outbound email?</a><h1>‍High Personalization Sequences</h1>This sequence involves doing the heavy lifting (research) in the first step of the sequence and then using fully automated emails.Step 1: Create a custom field in your CRM or Sales Engagement Platform (think Outplay!). Let’s call it “Personalization” Step 2: Create a sequence - the first step is just for doing the research, and writing a sentence around what you learned about them. So, as the sales rep is working the account, they are filling in the field for {{personalization}} Step 3: Create the first email in this sequence that incorporates the {{personalization}} field, “Hi {{firstname}},LinkedIn tells me that {{personalization}}. So, I was reaching out to set up a call to learn how you’re selling today, and share some of our best sequences with you.”Personalization at scale will allow you to keep focusing on people, strengthen your connections, and keep the conversation warm so that when the time is right for your prospects, you will already be prepared to set that meeting, provide the solution, and close that deal!Suggested Reading: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/ebook/real-sales-sequences">A free eBook on sales sequences of 30 hyper-growth companies!</a>

A quick guide to personalization at scale

<h1>Table of Content</h1><ul><li><a href="#pre-call">PRE-CALL</a></li><li><a href="#during-call">DURING THE CALL</a></li><li><a href="#post-call">POST-CALL</a></li></ul>‍Cold calling might be a traditionally old process, but it still serves as an essential method to generate interest amongst the prospects. <a href="https://www.resourcefulselling.com/cold-calling-statistics/">A study</a> states that around 6-7 calls need to be made to win the sale. To make the follow-up calls leading to the win, the initial call must impress the prospect, allow you to gauge the prospect's interest, and highlight your value proposition.Prior to sending an email, we can go through the template ‘n’ number of times before hitting send. Similarly, we can follow the same process before making a cold call - by going over a list of tasks to complete before or during the call to make it successful.Here’s a quick checklist to follow before you pick up the phone to dial.

<h1>PRE-CALL</h1><ol><li>❑ Assess your leads and prioritize them - Check if your company and your prospects match in terms of the business plan, industry, etc., and decide if both of you are a good fit for each other. Divide your leads based on the priority level by assigning them tags such as high/medium/low priority, so that you know the order in which you’ve to make the call. ‍</li><li>❑ Conduct your research - Learn more about your prospect by researching about them in order to strike a conversation and accurately position your product. Go through their social media profiles, website, and customer review sites to check their pain points. Do check if they’re the right person to reach out to or not. ‍</li><li>❑ Reason for the call - Know the reason for the call before diving into the meeting. Have a clear vision of what you’d like to achieve after the call so that you can work towards it while talking to the prospect. Is it to set up the next meeting? Or your prospect wanting a free trial? It could be anything. ‍</li><li>❑ Be ready with a script - Prepare a few voicemail scripts so that you don’t falter when you reach the prospect’s voicemail. Using the voicemail option, you can lead them to the next action, like asking them to check their email for further details. ‍</li><li>❑ Relax and rejuvenate - Take a deep breath before you go into the call and visualize how you’d like the entire call to pan out. Prepare for the call mentally so that you’re ready to deal with any situation during the call. Listen to popping music, munch on snacks, or do anything that’ll calm you down.</li></ol>

<h1>DURING THE CALL</h1>6. ❑ Permission-based opener - Consent to pitch is very important before you go ahead. Your prospect might be busy to take a sudden call and mostly in no mood to hear a random pitch. You must ask them if they’re free for a call during your opening pitch. If they say no, do ask them for a better time and set up a call for that time. Break the noise with something quirky, like the below example. ‍Eg: “Hi Anna, this is Julie from Outplay, and I’m sure you hate getting cold calls just as much as I dread having to make them! Do you mind if I take 20 seconds? I’ll tell you why I called.” 7. ❑ Pitch in time - Deliver your opening pitch within 15-20 seconds. Keep it short and crisp - introduce yourself, company statement/mission, etc - all in those few seconds to hook the receiver.Eg: "I’m sure you and your team would have faced the issue of falling behind on your targets. To help you with just that, I wanted to introduce Outplay to you - a sales engagement platform that’ll help you get more meetings booked every month.”The reason for calling them needs to be clear and you can highlight something that’ll be of use to them. 8. ❑ Ask open-ended questions - Ask questions to hear more from them and understand them better. Build the conversation with the help of a few questions.You can ask questions like “How much time do you spend while following up with leads?” or “How do you think changing this area could help you?”You can also ask questions about your product. Questions that would allow you to talk about how your product would solve an issue. Like, “Do you think your SDRs spend too much time manually sending emails?” This would allow you to pinpoint their problems. 9. ❑ Quick overview - Give them a brief overview of your product. Keep these lines handy so that you are rightly conveying the meaning of your product in just a few lines without confusing the prospect. 10. ❑ Are they interested - Ask if this interests them or if there’s something that they’d like to learn more about. Once they give a positive response, you have your chance to ask when they’d be free for a follow-up call.Something like -"If you’re interested, we can conduct a demo session of our product. Would sometime this week work for you?"SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/blog/12-skills-every-sdr-needs-to-crush-their-quotas">12 SKILLS EVERY SDR NEEDS TO CRUSH THEIR QUOTAS</a>

<h2>POST-CALL</h2>11. ❑ Provide more details - After the call, in an email, send them your name, contact number, calendar link, website link, case studies, or articles. You can also touch upon important pointers that were discussed in the call and include those in the mail as well. 12. ❑ Listen, analyze and repeat - You can always go through your call recording to review the call and analyze what could have been done differently. Jot down what lines you thought were impactful and use them for any future calls. 13. ❑ Stay connected - Connect with them on social media like LinkedIn/Twitter so that you have another platform apart from phone or email where you can reach out. to them. You can also use this to build a better rapport with them. 14. ❑ Contact before your call - Touch base with them right before the next meeting in order to jog their memory. Highlight whatever was discussed previously and the agenda for the upcoming call.Get access to sales sequences of 30 hypergrowth companies like Hubspot, Vidyard, etc. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/ebook/real-sales-sequences">here</a>.

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14-step checklist for cold calling

<h1>Table of Content</h1><ol style="list-style-type:decimal;"><li>&nbsp;Prioritize your surroundings to ease sales pressure</li><li>Organize your digital life</li><li>Turn jealousy into motivation</li><li>Think long-term and short-term simultaneously</li><li>Remove yourself from jobs that spike sales stress</li><li>Use your PTO &amp; set boundaries to ease sales anxiety</li><li>Turn to music, diet, exercise</li><li>Do it</li></ol>Is being a sales rep stressful? A 100%. <a href="https://www.uncrushed.org/content/2019/10/8/research-findings-burnout-in-the-sales-industry-uncrushed-survey">This</a> report illustrates that with perfect clarity. But are there ways to manage stress in a sales job? Also, yes a 100%. Here are the strategies I use to respond to stress productively:&nbsp;

<h1>1. Prioritize your surroundings to ease sales pressure</h1>

We know that sales is a high stress job. Which is why you need to set the tone with your environment. Whether you’re working remotely from a coffee shop, from your home, or from an office building, your physical surroundings can make an impact on your stress levels.This means ensuring that your desk chair is comfortable, your headphones aren’t painful to wear, and that you have enough space on your desk to work with. Additionally, try to keep your area clean and organized. Having a clean and organized workspace, physically, can have a significant impact on your productivity.As someone who prefers to work from home, my home office is a large space in my bedroom that has been carved out exclusively for work. It bothers me to high heavens when my bed isn’t made. That simple change of making my bed can elevate the “cleanliness look” of the room and has a positive impact on my day.Working from an office? Get into a habit of resetting your desk back to its ideal state, in terms of cleanliness and organization, at the end of each workday. Perhaps get a coaster and a personal trash bin at your desk if you’re someone that snacks or drinks from your desk often.&nbsp;

<h1>2. Organize your digital life</h1>

Continuing this pattern of focusing on your environment: there’s organization to be done with time and your digital life too.Before we dive in, pick one day to dedicate time to this; ideally a day you’re not working.Organize your Google Drive, Email Inbox, etc. with proper folders and tags. If you’re anything like me and you use Google Drive, Gmail, Canva, and Google Calendar religiously, you need to keep these color-coded, tagged, and/or organized to stay sane and ease that sales anxiety that creeps up. If you’re not sure where to begin, ask some coworkers to show you how they sort theirs or go on a search via YouTube or Google about organizing digital tools like these.This goes one step further if you’re working with <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/top-5-sales-engagement-platforms-to-prospect-efficiently">tools</a> like Salesforce, Outplay, etc. - even those tools require effort to organize. Don’t be afraid to have some quarterly clean-up or reorganization on your own instance of these tools; even if you’re pretty good at organizing as you go. Dedicating the time to evaluate your organization of these tools will have a long-term impact on your productivity.You're already facing sales pressure. You don't need to do it with a cluttered tech stack.Don’t forget: Put your notifications on autopilot in Slack and other programs that could distract you throughout the day. That means creating a notification schedule in Slack so you don’t have to remember to turn them on and off. Do the same for your work computer and your smartphone. Furthermore, apply all of this logic to your personal email, smartphone apps, etc.&nbsp;

<h1>3. Turn jealousy into motivation&nbsp;</h1>

An unfortunate truth is that a lot of stress in sales jobs comes from reps seeing their coworkers succeed while they’re struggling. It’s easier said than done, but shifting the perspective with the words you use to yourself and others can make an impact on the sales pressure you put on yourself.For example, if a coworker is performing exceptionally, instead of “wishing” you were doing as well as they were (which is a natural feeling, I get it), try to shift your mindset to “this could be an opportunity for me to learn how to improve from someone.”Turn the negatives into positives whenever it's realistic and logical to do so. This is one example, but I’m sure there are plenty more you could apply this logic to. And if it's achieving quotas that triggers your sales anxiety, look for <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/sales-quota-how-to-ace-the-sales-game">resources or best practices</a> to give you a leg up.&nbsp;

<h1>4. Think long-term and short-term simultaneously</h1>

Whether it’s organizing the CRM and your Google Drive, or filling your pipeline with qualified opportunities regularly so it doesn’t dry - thinking about this month, this quarter, and next quarter, too, is super important. It can’t be just about what’s happening right here, right now always. Make sure to not get too comfortable with the short-term working out and assuming it’ll sustain on its own passively. A big part of how to deal with sales stress comes from organizational strategies that future-proof your processes, pipeline, success, and overall stress management.&nbsp;

<h1>5. Remove yourself from jobs that spike sales stress</h1>

Sometimes it’s them, not you. The honest truth is that for some of us, the best way to manage stress is to leave the environment we’re in. A phrase commonly used for people coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that translates well to stress management is “You can’t heal in the environment that hurt you.” If you’re in a toxic workplace, if you're asking yourself 'how to manage stress in a sales job' too often, or you simply don’t love the product, team, ICP, etc. - don’t be afraid to consider exploring new opportunities elsewhere. If you <a href="https://www.ukg.com/about-us/newsroom/silenced-workforce-four-five-employees-feel-colleagues-arent-heard-equally-says">aren't being heard</a>, you're not in the right place, and that's not limited to sales.Like we said before - are sales jobs stressful by nature? Absolutely. But when that crosses the line to toxicity, you know what you have to do.P.S.: I loved <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-culture?_ga=2.96261724.1514845078.1653434161-1224784220.1653434161&amp;__hstc=210964170.55d75eade41f37fde2ca0f0dcefa13fb.1666254113272.1672889953853.1672896368429.118&amp;__hssc=210964170.2.1672896368429&amp;__hsfp=1038082720">this</a> blog on what a healthy sales culture should look like&nbsp;

<h1>6. Use your PTO &amp; set boundaries to ease sales anxiety</h1>

I’m someone that keeps my calendar updated religiously. I have very clear work hours shown to everyone on my team. I promise you that email or Slack message can wait till tomorrow morning. Do your best to set clear boundaries and expectations on how much, how often, and how long you’ll be working throughout the week. Prioritize non-working time and take time off to recharge and rest. Not working is great for work. Stop working so much, you’ll actually do better and ease your sales anxiety faster when you prioritize resting when you need (or want) to rest.P.S. You don’t need a reason to take PTO other than simply wanting to or catching a break to ease that sales pressure; it doesn’t need to be a doctor’s appointment or a vacation. It’s okay to take time off “just because you need time off” - don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.&nbsp;

<h1>7. Turn to music, diet, exercise</h1>

I hope this isn’t news to anyone, but please try to remember that what you do with your body and free time has a massive impact on your work life too. If you love music and it puts you in a certain mood that benefits your work, try to incorporate more music into your environment throughout the day, even if you’re not working. I almost always have music streaming on Spotify somewhere in my apartment at any point in the day.What you eat or drink, especially for breakfast or lunch, has a massive impact on your brainpower throughout the day. Lean into superfoods, foods that are filled with nutrition, and try to minimize (or avoid altogether) junk food.Lastly, ensure that you’re getting at least 30 minutes of dedicated exercise per day. Whether that’s going on a walk, hitting the gym, or committing a 15-minute workout in the morning and a 15-minute walk in the evening - just get your body moving. &nbsp;P.S. : Reading is a great stress buster too. If sales stress and sales anxiety are all you can think of, remind yourself what you drew you to sales in the first place with some <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/6-best-sales-books-all-the-leaders-are-reading-this-summer">inspirational reading</a>. Catch yourself at the 'why is sales so stressful??' moments to switch to, 'hey, sales can be pretty exciting.'&nbsp;

We could go on about the lifestyle changes and organization tips that can help a salesperson improve their stress management skills; so consider this the start. What works for someone else may not work for you, and that’s okay. Most importantly, remember that you’re human. This is and always will be imperfect. Give yourself that permission. Sometime ago, we spoke to 4 sales reps on how they deal with their own version of sales anxiety. <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/how-sales-reps-deal-with-anxiety-in-sales">Here's</a> what they said. I hope it helps you in some way!Oh, and before you go, <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/31-motivational-sales-quotes-to-pump-your-team">here's</a> something that keeps me going.&nbsp;

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How to Deal with Sales Stress - 8 Ways to Help Your Sales Reps Manage Stress

<h1>Table of Content</h1><ul><li><a href="#emotional-intelligence">Tryst with emotional intelligence</a></li><li><a href="#Sales-EQ">Sales EQ to humanize your sales process</a></li><li><a href="#takeaway">Our takeaways from this episode</a></li><li><a href="#humantouch">Adding a human touch to your sales process</a></li></ul>When Pratyush Shukla and David Youngblood had a meeting scheduled with one highly qualified lead, they knew they’d have to bring three things to the table- power-packed research, clear communication, and high emotional intelligence. <a href="https://www.ihhp.com/meaning-of-emotional-intelligence/">‍</a>‍<a href="https://www.ihhp.com/meaning-of-emotional-intelligence/">Emotional intelligence</a> or Sales EQ refers to the practice of being aware of one’s own emotions and being able to comprehend the emotions of others.Our top Account Executive, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedavidyoungblood/">David Youngblood</a> is a huge believer in creating an upbeat and positive environment for the entire team and the prospects in order to crush the monthly targets in time.Using the same tact of maintaining a high sales EQ, David and one of our ace SDRs <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratyush-anand-shukla-96442a15a/">Pratyush Shukla</a> have mastered the art of being able to ‘read the room’ and quickly get a hold of their own emotions.

<h1>Tryst with emotional intelligence</h1>One recent win at Outplay was when we heard David share a prospect's feedback that immediately brought a smile to our faces. We’ll get to the feedback in a bit, but let’s take a look at what went behind gaining that praise.Pratyush showed the importance of first-hand research and the necessity of identifying the client’s pain points before the call. Thus, research-backed by empathizing with the client acted as a huge determinant in winning the client’s heart (and eventually the deal).With his prospecting approach, he managed to stand out from the crowd and create a difference in the prospect's buying process.Also, surprisingly, this entire conversation took place in discord. The prospect overheard Pratyush mention Outplay to someone else and that’s exactly when the prospect reached out to him personally as he wanted to know more.

<h1>Sales EQ to humanize your sales process</h1>Since our SDR created a great first impression, when the prospect spoke to David - the next interaction was the icing on the cake.In the prospect’s words, speaking to David was the “highlight” of his day. He termed David to be very “energetic, curious, funny and most of all human.”He further stated that due to these factors he placed Outplay at the top of his list for the final evaluation compared to other, much bigger tools whose sales processes were robotic and lacked emotions.He mentioned that the conversations with Outplay’s team stood out from the rest as they pumped in a lot of energy into the interactions and rightly understood the prospect’s needs.SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/blog/stress-management-for-sales-professionals">STRESS MANAGEMENT FOR SALES PROFESSIONALS</a>

<h1>Our takeaways from this episode</h1>Humanizing an interaction sets you apart from the robotic sales pitches that usually lack empathy, human sentiments, or any personal touch.As David rightly says, “The better the journey/experience of the prospect, the higher their likelihood is to buy!”When the prospect was riddled with several repetitive, redundant, and aimless questions throughout the day from a variety of sellers, the only thing that would set the next meeting apart would be personalization.And by rightly mapping the prospect’s pain points, correctly gauging their emotions, adding a genuine touch of curiosity, and being human helped in steering the conversation accordingly.Delivering the correct emotions into the meeting and picking up the prospect’s reactions beforehand are ingredients that help in making any sales meeting a hit.

<h1>Adding a human touch to your sales process</h1>Humanizing your sales process cannot really be taught to the entire team, but a set of skills can be developed to result in that.<ol style="list-style-type:decimal;"><li>Personalize the touchpoints, wherever necessary.</li><li>Praise your peers more and create a positive work environment.</li><li>Empathize with your buyer and understand their pain points.</li><li>At the same time, balance your emotions by not being afraid to ask critical questions such as the prospect's budget, true decision-makers, etc.</li><li>Work on how to solve a problem and not be affected by rejection.</li><li>Always be ready to train and develop in the area of sales. ‍</li></ol>In a fast-paced environment like sales and with the surge in competition, one of the factors that’ll mainly set you apart from the constant noise will be to personalize your sales outreach.One of the biggest advantages of using Outplay is that you can personalize at scale. If you’d like to know more, <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/request-a-demo">schedule a 30-minute call</a> with us and we'd love to show you how we do the same using dynamic sequencing and <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/ebook/account-based-prospecting">account-based prospecting</a>.

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The power of emotional intelligence in sales

<h1>Table of Content</h1><ul><li><a href="#A-pitch-to-help ">A pitch to help</a></li><li><a href="#Well-wishes-and-support ">Well wishes and support</a></li><li><a href="#Shoot-your-questions ">Shoot your questions</a></li><li><a href="#Form-a-friendly-connection">Form a friendly connection</a></li><li><a href="#Clear-cut-CTA’s">Clear cut CTA’s</a></li></ul>‍“Looking forward to speaking to you soon.” This phrase is almost used by everyone. It’s used when we can’t think of any other way to end the email. But resorting to this boring old line doesn’t help in standing out from the other emails. To leave a lasting impression on a prospect, an email’s closing line plays a huge part in motivating the prospect to respond.Read on to get an idea on how to end an email while making an impact.

<h1>A pitch to help</h1>Show your warmth and give prospect’s an idea that you’ll always be around to guide or help them. The email closing lines here can throw light on how you're interested in providing value.&nbsp;<ul><li>What could I do to earn 5 minutes of your time and prove our value? [Cloudtask] &nbsp;</li><li>I'd love to show you some of your projects, and see if we can't be of value to you. [Nearmap] &nbsp;</li><li>Happy to answer any questions or get on a quick call if it would be helpful. &nbsp;</li><li>If in the future it ever makes sense to reconnect, let me know a time that works best for you. I'm always here to help! [Urbanbound] &nbsp;</li><li>Happy to answer any questions and see if [company name] can provide better visibility into your most important KPIs. [Grow] &nbsp;</li><li>If project timing/budget is the issue how about we reconnect in 3/4 months? [Happeo]</li></ul>

<h1>Well wishes and support</h1>Appreciations and support can make anyone feel special. Give your necessary shout-outs to your prospect and show them that you appreciate them!&nbsp;<ul><li>P.S. I checked out your personal site - great portfolio. Particularly enjoyed the [blog/video/any post]! [Vidyard] &nbsp;</li><li>Also, it's great seeing your team expand! Can’t wait to see more opportunities and wins for your company. I have a few candidates who would be perfect for a few roles, if you’re interested I can forward their details over. :) &nbsp;</li><li>Just wanted to say that I loved the new product update, especially the [feature]. Would love to learn more about it and also show you how [your product] would be an even better fit now: [calendar link] &nbsp;</li><li>Also, I attended your webinar yesterday, it was an insightful event and you were a great speaker! Since your topic was on [webinar topic], I’m sure [your product] would interest you. You can book a meeting here: [calendar link]</li></ul>

<h1>Shoot your questions</h1>A good question can turn any conversation around and also increase the prospect’s need to reply. Ask what’s on your mind with the email closing lines and build a powerful conversation.&nbsp;<ul><li>If you aren't the right person to contact, can you please forward me on to someone more appropriate? &nbsp;</li><li>Can you please tell me if you want me to close the file and stop contacting you or retry connecting at a later time? [TimeTrade] &nbsp;</li><li>Looks like I’ve reached out to you at the wrong time. Do I have your permission to check back next month regarding [company] referrals? [AppVirality] &nbsp;</li><li>What do the next couple of quarters look like for you? &nbsp;</li><li>What are the challenges for [company name]? I’d love to help you out. &nbsp;</li><li>Did you have any problems with similar products in the past? What were they?</li></ul>

<h1>Form a friendly connection</h1>Finding some common ground can help you establish an initial connection with your prospects. Keeping it fun and simple can help end the email on a lighter note. This sort of closing line will require you to do more personal research, but making a connection early on will also help to put your prospect at ease.&nbsp;<ul><li>Also, I see that you attended [event/conference] last year. Who was your favorite speaker? &nbsp;</li><li>By the way, I’m also a huge fan of the [movie/series name]! Did you watch the latest season? &nbsp;</li><li>I can see that you love to travel! What’s the best place you’ve ever been to? &nbsp;</li><li>I noticed on twitter how you’re great at baking! I’ve always tried to make chocolate chip cookies, but have failed every time - would love to get your expert opinion. &nbsp;</li><li>I can see that you’re located in [city]. I’ve been meaning to ask - what’s one restaurant you’d recommend to anyone visiting for the first time?</li></ul>SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/blog/the-power-of-emotional-intelligence-in-sales">THE POWER OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN SALES&nbsp;</a>

<h1>Clear cut CTA’s</h1>Never leave your prospect without a clear idea of what to do next. Including a simple, specific call-to-action at the end of your email to drive the process forward.&nbsp;<ul><li>Please reach out to me here - [link] by [date] if you are ready to take this forward. &nbsp;</li><li>I’ll send you a calendar invite about finalizing that paperwork on [date]. What do you think? &nbsp;</li><li>Here’s our upcoming webinar that’ll help you get a better vision of our product: [link] &nbsp;</li><li>You can pick a time that works for you: [your calendar link] &nbsp;</li><li>The blog on [blog link] has been really helpful to most of our clients. Do take a look! &nbsp;</li><li>Would love to have you try our free [new feature/product]. Here’s the link to it: [link]&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Would love to show you how [product/service] would work for [company] - interested in seeing it in action? &nbsp;</li><li>Here’s a quick glance of our tool, if that’ll help: [link]</li></ul>Emails should create a lasting impression on the prospect. Based on how powerful your email closing line is, the higher the chance of getting your prospect to respond and think about your product 24/7.Keep the conversation going with these email closing lines!SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://outplayhq.com/blog/what-ingredients-make-a-great-outbound-email">WHAT INGREDIENTS MAKE A GREAT OUTBOUND EMAIL</a>

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Seal the deal with these best email closing lines

<h1>Table of Content</h1><ul><li><a href="#manage-your-hours-wisely">Manage your hours wisely</a></li><li><a href="#sdr-and-productexpert">SDR as well as a product expert</a></li><li><a href="#marie-kondo">Become the ‘Marie Kondo’ of sales</a></li><li><a href="#relationship">Building relationships that go a long way</a></li><li><a href="#expert-listener">Become an expert listener</a></li><li><a href="#empathy">Empathy not sympathy</a></li><li><a href="#walk-away">Knowing when to walk away</a></li><li><a href="#self-aware">Be self-aware</a></li><li><a href="#objection">Overcoming objections</a></li><li><a href="#criticism-constructively ">Taking criticism constructively</a></li><li><a href="#hunger">Hunger for more</a></li><li><a href="#thirst">Thirst for knowledge</a></li></ul>‍SDR’s want to hit quota to fully realize their on-target earnings in their compensation plan, in which many can earn over <a href="https://compgauge.com/compensation/sales-development-representative/">100,000</a> per year all in. But, hitting the monthly sales quotas is no easy feat. Luckily, there are a few skills that’ll help SDRs feed their pipeline with more highly qualified leads and create opportunities.Here are 12 skills that an SDR can work on to improve their selling game!

<h1>Manage your hours wisely</h1>Everyday activities can easily be divided based on their priority. With a few hours in hand per day, it becomes necessary for SDRs to squeeze out a lot of productivity juice by focusing on activities that are important rather than spending time and energy on tasks that are low priority.Managing your time is a skill that can be honed over a period of time. With effective planning, you can also decide which account needs more research and time compared to others.

<h1>SDR as well as a product expert</h1>Become a ‘know-it-all’ when it comes to your product. Given how most of the pitches made by SDRs depend on the product and how it’ll solve the prospect’s problems - having a strong grip over the product and its features will help you pique the prospect’s interest easily.Prospects will respond better when they realize that the sales rep has accurate information on the product/service. At the same time, ample product knowledge also builds confidence amongst SDRs, allowing them to feel self-reliant and unfazed during any meeting.

<h1>Become the ‘Marie Kondo’ of sales</h1>Imagine getting ready to start your day, but you end up getting overwhelmed by the heaps of leads and prospect data. Organizing your leads at the end of the day or in the beginning will help you stay on top of the leads that need immediate attention without fail.‘Divide and Conquer’ your monthly quotas with ease. Maintaining a solid schedule will help SDRs conduct timely personalized outreach and get a big fat sales pipeline in return.

<h1>Building relationships that go a long way</h1>Building trust and a genuine relationship with a lead are precursors to a happy and satisfied prospect. The idea is to leave the prospect pleased before moving on to the final call with the account executive.Crisp and clear communication usually leads to a strong relationship with the prospect. Communicating and actively listening to them on mail, phone, SMS, social media or any platform that you’re using to communicate with them will lead to increased confidence in you as well as the product.

<h1>Become an expert listener</h1>The most important part of having good communication skills is knowing how and when to listen to your prospect. It is said that any <a href="https://www.wilcox.sandler.com/blog/70-30-rule">successful sales call</a> should comprise 70% listening and 30% talking by the SDR.Only when you actively listen to your prospect and understand their pain points, would an SDR be able to provide solutions that actually add value to them. Active listening also helps in preparing well for meetings. It allows you to recognize an opportunity when it arises and have a real conversation around it, instead of following a robotic script.

<h1>Empathy not sympathy</h1>Empathy allows sales reps to ‘walk a mile in the prospect’s shoes’ and understand their thoughts, problems, requirements, etc. This helps in building long-term relationships and trust which further influences the decisions made by the prospect.Understand the true reality of the prospect’s problem by empathizing and not sympathizing with them. &nbsp;Sympathy would allow you to know something’s wrong, but empathy would let you feel and understand the ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ of the problem. Sharing more about yourself, actively providing a helping hand without being asked, etc. are a few ways of practicing empathy. SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/blog/the-power-of-emotional-intelligence-in-sales">THE POWER OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN SALES</a>

<h1>Knowing when to walk away</h1>Walking away from a potential customer is hard. After spending hours of work, resources, and calls, it becomes difficult to know that the chapter has come to an end. But at the same time, disqualifying a lead will help you become a far better salesperson.When a prospect doesn’t have any budget in mind, or they don’t see any value in your product, or overtime you realize they won’t be a good fit, etc. - these are all clear signs for you to drop the lead and move on to other bigger and better prospects.

<h1>Be self-aware</h1>As a sales rep, it’s important to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses so that you can steer the interaction accordingly and provide a great experience for your prospects. Identifying where you’re lacking will help you focus on those areas more and develop a plan to combat those issues more effectively.A self-aware SDR will constantly ask their managers for feedback and won’t be affected by any negative responses. They'll be able to focus on their areas of growth and devise a plan of action on how to become a better sales rep.

<h1>Overcoming objections</h1>Overcoming objections is usually marked as one of the biggest challenges that SDRs have to face. This is a skill that is learned over a period of time as SDRs will take time to understand their product from A to Z and get a better understanding of how the product will help solve a problem creatively.This can be achieved by handling several meetings regularly and figuring out how the product/service can be presented differently to each prospect. Developing trust and an authentic bond with the prospect will also help in influencing the prospect in favor of the service.

<h1>Taking criticism constructively</h1>Learning to take criticism well pushes an SDR to become a better sales rep. Instead of getting defensive and assuming the worst, it’s advised to take the criticism in good stead and be thankful for the advice. As difficult as it might be, in the end, this feedback is meant for you to top the charts and become a successful sales representative.It’s a great practice to follow up with the person who gave you the feedback in the first place so that you can measure your progress and take note of deflections if any. As the saying goes, “Never let any criticism get to your heart.”

<h1>Hunger for more</h1>Top SDRs are usually very curious and always have a penchant for more leads. The best salespeople are ‘’more hungry to sell, and more hungry to succeed.’’ &nbsp;There must be a constant drive to smash more targets, fill up the pipeline and beat more records, as this will motivate one to easily hit their monthly quotas.Every SDR has a different reason to motivate themselves in order to reach their goal. Once they find that reason, it becomes very easy for them to aim for the stars and crush their monthly targets. Having an environment that fuels success would instantly help in boosting the motivation level.

<h1>Thirst for knowledge</h1>Lack of knowledge in sales can be a deal-breaker for many prospects. SDRs must be constantly aware of ‘everything product’ and keep a tab of every change in the company - big or small.SDRs must continually pursue and absorb information around the product/service from the in-house repository, colleagues, training &amp; development sessions, practical learning, industry events, and online resources.

SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/blog/5-simple-tactics-for-sdrs-to-get-more-meetings-booked">5 TACTICS FOR SDRS TO GET MORE MEETINGS BOOKED</a>

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12 skills every SDR needs to consistently crush their quotas

Will they or won’t they?A question you’ll find an SDR ponder over as soon as they send an email to a prospect. Will the prospect be impressed with your outbound email or even have an interest in opening it? All of this depends on factors such as a strong subject line, crisp email copy, a bold CTA, amongst other things.In this blog, we’ll go over some top tips followed by our very own Outplayers, the ingredients required to make a great outbound email and as a bonus, we’ve added a few email templates used by top companies like Drift, Hubspot, etc. Let’s dive right into it, shall we?So, here’s what you need to focus on to build a terrific outbound email.

<h1>1. Subject line of an outbound email&nbsp;</h1>Once your prospect opens your email, half of your battle is won. The key to a great subject line is keeping it crisp and captivating. In a few words, you should lure the prospect to open the mail by creating curiosity. ‍ Of course, you should always A/B test your subject lines and check which ones generate the highest open rate. Pick that and use it for your future email sequences.Try personalizing the subject line and build their level of curiosity. A few words have the power to set the precedence for your entire email body. Here are a few examples and tips:<ul><li>I know how you can improve {X}&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I have a question about your [any recent news like funding]&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>{X} told me to reach out to you&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Stick to using only 2-5 words for the subject line&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Use their first name, their company name, and competitors name to make it more personalized&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Use the word “help”, “referral" in the subject line. Eg: Can you help, {firstname}?, Referred by {firstname} &nbsp;</li></ul>Avoid using spammy words like discount, free, help, consultation, etc. The idea is to sound more human or conversational.

<h1>2. Email intro&nbsp;</h1>The first few lines before you go into your email body must be very clever and unique. This is where you can leave a good first impression on the prospect by showing off your research skills.Well, we don’t mean finding out about their family history, allergic reactions, etc. But, in this case, we mean heavy research on the company to show how well you’re aware of any news around them, their pain points, new additions, etc.These 2 lines of intro can still make the prospect hit the ‘X' button in spite of opening the email that had a catchy subject line. You can start off with something like the following:&nbsp;<ul><li>Hey {X}, firstly congratulations on your recent funding announcement &nbsp;</li><li>Hi {X}, after checking out your LinkedIn Profile + Website I noticed you were hiring SDRs&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Hey {X}, with unemployment at all-time lows, how have you changed your recruiting strategy?&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Hi {X}, given your presence in {Y}, I thought you might want in on [your company]’s solution.&nbsp;</li></ul>The above openers are few successful openings that have been used by top companies like Urbanbound, DemandDrive, and Nearmap. The idea is to expand on such information and show that you're concerned.

<h1>3. Body of an outbound email&nbsp;</h1>A good practice to follow here is to convey your product/service’s value by asking simple questions that are aligned with the prospect's goals or needs. But at the same time, subtlety is the best policy here.Eg: What if your reps could follow best practices across multiple channels like email, phone, social, etc. to maximize the number of meetings with a perfect combination of automation and personalization?We don’t want the email to be too sales-y. This section must emulate more on the problems they face and how you can help them. The trick is to highlight how the prospect will benefit from your product or service and to not make this bit feature-heavy.The pitch is about your prospects' needs and not your products list of features.Suggested Reading: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/blog/14-step-checklist-for-cold-calling">14-step checklist to cold calling</a>You can also capture their attention through storytelling and relatability, which would in turn pique their curiosity.Eg: I bet you’d spend your time talking to your prospects rather than worrying about managing your sales cadence. That’s why I thought you might want to check out a tool that takes care of everything in terms of sales engagement and helps you get more meetings booked.

<h1>4. Closing statement&nbsp;</h1>For the final zing, you need to add a closing statement that will persuade your prospects to complete an action and gently nudge them to give a response.This statement should leave a lasting impression on the prospect. Here’s something you can try:&nbsp;<ul><li>Are you available for a 15-minute call on [date and time]?&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>Here’s one of our webinars that’ll help you get a better vision of our product: [link]&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>I’ll send you a calendar invite about finalizing that paperwork on [date]. What do you think?&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>If budget is an issue, how about we reconnect after 3-4 months &nbsp;</li><li>You can pick a time that works best for you: [your calendar link]</li></ul>SUGGESTED READING: <a href="https://www.outplayhq.com/blog/best-email-closing-lines">SEAL THE DEAL WITH THESE BEST EMAIL CLOSING LINES</a>

<h1>5. Your signature&nbsp;</h1>You must polish and clean your email signature before sending the mail.Thus, the signature should look professional and include the information that’s required for the prospect to learn more. Your contact information, social profile links such as LinkedIn, and the company website link are a must.Be careful about using any photos in your signature as some email clients might block any images by default. And if this happens, your signature will end up looking broken. The same principle applies to using HTML-based signatures from online websites - these might look pleasing to you, but actually can be the reason for your email landing in the ‘spam' folder.

<h1>Hear it from our outplayers&nbsp;</h1>We asked a few of the sales superstars of Outplay what they think are the best practices while sending an outbound email. Here’s what they have to say:&nbsp;<ul><li>Offhand what makes a good email is <a href="https://mailshake.com/blog/aida-model-sales-emails/">AIDA</a>, which is: A = Attention, I = [pique their] Interest, D = Desire, A &nbsp;= Action. - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/billstiber/">Bill Stiber&nbsp;</a> &nbsp;</li><li>There are a couple of elements that help draft a crisp email. A short subject line, persona/individual-based personalization, elevator pitch, an offer to educate, and a catchy CTA at the end. - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/manthanrgupta/">Manthan Gupta</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;</li><li>The value proposition in the mail should be more around asking the prospect a question and tying that to the personalization you displayed at the start of the email. The idea is to mention that we can help solve the problem, but you shouldn’t stress on ‘how' we can solve it, as this helps generate curiosity. - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/muneesh-tyagi-l-i-o-n-019a0493/">Muneesh Tyagi</a> &nbsp;</li><li>Crisp and unconventional subject lines are the way to go. You should also try to reduce the fluff by staying away from terms like efficiency, productivity, 2x, 3x, etc. as most of the emails contain the same terms and you want to stand apart from them. Break the monotony by keeping the email conversational and casual. Don’t have to be formal and robotic. - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/srivaradhan/">Srivaradha Vanamamalai&nbsp;</a> &nbsp;</li><li>‍Try mentioning any reviews you received from your customers in your mail. This gives a broader understanding to the prospects of what your customers like about you and how they use your product. - <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreya-sinha-05b27913a/">Shreya Sinha</a></li></ul>

<h1>The best outbound email templates - just for you</h1>As promised, here are the best outbound emails used by top leaders like Drift, Vidyard, etc.&nbsp;<h2>1. Drift</h2>

<h2>2. Grow</h2>&nbsp;

<h2>3. CloudApp&nbsp;</h2>

Niharika Ayyagari

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