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The sales team is responsible for converting potential leads into customers. Many businesses face hurdles and even a dead end when it comes down to engaging customers.
Don’t panic if your business is one of them. To get the results you want and more, you can create a sales cadence strategy that fits your business model.
Are you confused about what this is? This guide will help you improve your sales skills and customer engagement.
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What Is a Sales Cadence?
Connecting with the customer and staying in touch with them throughout their journey with your business is an essential factor in marketing and sales.
Sales cadence is a thorough plan containing numerous touchpoints that are approached in a sequence, in which you or your sales team can connect with your customer to interact or sell your product. These touchpoints or points of contact with the customer can be through a call, email, website, or social media.
You may want to connect with your customer for various reasons. A few of them are listed below.
Tell them what your business is all about Explain all the features of your product Follow-up calls and emails Close the deal
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Ideally, eight touchpoints are required to complete a sale with a customer. However, each company is different. Your business may need only five or seven touchpoints to close a deal. It all depends on the company, customer, and product.
Here’s an example of creating a multi-touch cadence
Day 1 – EmailDay 3 – Email Day 6 – Follow-up email No.1Day 9 – Call in the morning. You may even leave a voicemail if the customer doesn’t answer your callDay 11 – Follow-up email No.2Day 14 – Call Day 16 – Follow-up email No.3Day 20 – Final round of communication
Importance of an Effective Sales Cadence
A brand thrives on happy customers who do business with them. As the essence of an effective sales cadence strategy is to connect with more customers regularly, a single communication channel will not help.
Sales cadence will only deliver effective results if the touchpoints are created through numerous platforms. This is because not all customers are comfortable with follow-up calls. Some might be comfortable with emails, while others might prefer interacting with businesses on social media.
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An effective sales cadence can also help your business connect with more prospects and convert these prospects into long-term customers. This way, there is a constant and steady flow in the sales pipeline.
6 Sales Email Cadence Best Practices to Follow
Here are six pointers that you must definitely include and master in your sales cadence strategy.
Sales Cadence Best Practice #1: Prospect Comes First
In a business, a potential customer who might be willing to do business with you is called a prospect. Prospecting is essentially the first step in the sales cadence strategy, as you search and interact with multiple prospects.
To begin with, you must ensure that you find the right prospects for your business. A study by Sales Insights Lab shows that 50% of the prospects are bad fits for your company. You can learn two things from this statistic.
Take it in your stride that not all prospects will turn into customers. Tweak the criteria based on which you shortlist prospects. This way, you may be able to find more prospects who will turn out as good fits.
And always remember to keep the prospects in the highest place of importance, as building a relationship with them can boost your business sales.
Sales Cadence Best Practice #2: Conduct Thorough Research
Whether it is prospecting or follow-ups, thorough research is a must in sales cadence. Conducting proper research can help you in many areas like,
Finding the right sector of the audience to target Narrowing down the audience members to find the right prospects Learning more about the communication channels that your client prefers Understanding the various areas that your client struggles with Finding the right time of the day to contact the prospect Understanding the perfect way through which you can cater to the prospect’s requirements
Sometimes, your research might also show you that your marketing strategies aren’t delivering the desired results. You can then use these insights to change your marketing strategy. For instance, you may go from text-based templates to video selling your products. This change might help you increase your engagement rates and ROI.
Typically, a sales rep spends 17% of their day prospecting and researching leads. When all the different pointers are executed properly, the results of your sales cadence are enhanced.
Sales Cadence Best Practice #3: Remember to Ask Questions
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood!”
– Stephen Covey, American author, educator, and businessman
Following this quote from Stephen Covey is a great way to approach this pointer. It correlates with the previous point of keeping the customer first.
If you are having a difficult time connecting with your customers, you need to learn more about their requirements and preferences. Focus on how they want their product and not on how you can sell it. Find out what they want before showing them what you can provide.
Your questions may include asking them about their pain points, budget, needs, and ideal solutions. A few examples of questions are given below.
“What challenges or obstacles are you trying to overcome?”“What solution are you looking for?”
If your prospect is a company, you can also ask questions like,
“Which department in your company is facing this issue?”“How many employees work in your company or department?”
By asking questions, you can gain more insight into your prospect that will help you remodel your sales and marketing strategy for better results. This exercise will also help you develop a relationship with your clients.
Sales Cadence Best Practice #4: Actively Listen to the Prospect’s Needs
You did your research and asked the right questions to your prospect. But none of it will make any difference if you do not actively listen to your prospects and customers.
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Every sales rep should be able to listen and actively learn. HubSpot’s survey found that 69% of customers believe that a sales representative who listens to them can make their experience better.
Active listening is more than just hearing. It involves paying attention to every word and detail of the conversation. This helps you to better understand your customer and ask the right questions. Active listening ultimately leads to increased sales.
For example, if your prospect tells you about their pain points then forget about your product. Listen to what they have to say and learn more from their body language, expressions and tone.
You can ask the prospect if they understood everything. To gain a deeper understanding, you can ask them relevant follow-up questions. After you have gotten to know your customers, you can then tell them how your product will benefit them.
Sales Cadence Best Practice #5 – Bring Value to the Table
People don’t have time for endless sales pitches that lead nowhere. They want to hear how you can help.
82% of sales representatives try to offer value to customers and prospects. 34% of customers were unhappy with their sales experience due to the fact that the sales rep didn’t offer any value.
When you contact a prospect, make sure you add value. By providing information that solves the problem of the prospect, you can add value.
Sales Cadence Best Practice #6 – Ensure that you Always Follow Up
Because follow-ups are the most important stage in sales cadence,
It provides you with a status update about the progress of your deal. It helps you convince customers who are still at the deciding stage. It also builds a relationship between the customer and you
The sad thing is that 48% don’t follow up and 44% don’t go beyond the first attempt.
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To close a sale or establish rapport with a prospect, there must be at most five follow-up calls. This is because 60% customers will decline to buy four times before actually saying yes.
Automation and digitization are becoming more common in every industry and sector. Software like Outreach can help you keep to your sales schedule and not miss a call or email.
You can use this software to create sales cadences and templates for your sales reps. The software automates follow-up by automatically sending follow-up email to prospects.
CRM tools can provide insight and analytics about the effectiveness of your strategy. You can analyse the email-open rate if you use email to establish touchpoints.
You can get insights into the number of views, shares, retention, and other metrics if you use videos in your emails.
Here are some points to remember about Sales Cadence
Although all of the above is important, there are some things you should avoid.
1. Maintain Proper Sales Etiquette
It is important to maintain good sales manners when interacting with prospects. A member of your sales team who is not professional in sales can cause a chain reaction that could lead to a disastrous outcome for your business.
Poor sales etiquette
This leads to
Brand reputation damaged
This leads to
Negative word of mouth
This leads to
Loss of existing and new customers
This leads to
Sales reduced
Avoid poor sales techniques to save your company from the domino effect.
Lying overtalking Cutting the customer’s sentences Staying confident Procrastinating Being arrogant
2. Don’t jump to conclusions
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This point is closely related to many of the others. When you do business with customers or interact with prospects, don’t jump to any conclusions. Sales reps tend to jump to conclusions in only a few areas.
They know exactly what the prospect wants.
Stick to your process. You must conduct thorough research and ask pertinent questions to your prospects. Then, learn about their needs and circumstances by listening to their answers.
3. Avoid Talking Politics
You should avoid discussing sensitive topics with clients, just like proper sales etiquette. One such topic is politics.
There are always two sides to any topic. There are always two halves to any topic: one that is compassionate and the other that isn’t. You client might have little or no interest in politics.
It doesn’t matter which half of your family they are, it is best to avoid talking about it with them. You are wasting your time if your prospect isn’t interested. You can make it difficult for them to be compassionate. Politics is a sensitive topic.
4. Be a Mr. Knowledge-It-All
“Don’t try to be an expert; learn as much as you can.”
– Jeffrey Weiner, American businessman
A person who believes they know it all is called “Know-itall”. They are arrogant, overconfident and don’t listen to others’ opinions or ideas. This could be why your sales team isn’t delivering the results you desire.
These traits can lead to negative experiences for prospects and customers which will affect your company’s reputation and sales.
These are the traits you should look for in your sales reps. Then, work with them to improve their listening skills. Your team will be more humble if you lead by example.
5. Do not rely on phone calls alone or bank on them
Don’t rely solely on the phone when prospecting or following up with prospects.
Each customer is unique in their preferred communication channel. Eighty percent of prospects prefer to communicate with sales reps by email. In this fast-paced world, many people don’t have the patience or time to listen to sales pitches over the phone.
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Customers can click to delete an email without ever looking at it. This is the biggest problem with email communications. They can’t be blamed. Every day, customers receive hundreds of these emails.
This problem can be overcome by replacing textual emails and videos. You can personalize your videos and send them to the customer at large to build a stronger relationship.
6. Do not be too defensive
New clients tend to be skeptical about doing business. They don’t know if you are the right fit for them. You are not giving prospects any incentive to work with your company if you act defensively in these situations.
They should know the capabilities of your business and how you adapt to their requirements. Avoid being defensive when dealing with clients in such situations. Show your clients how your product can simplify their lives.
However, it is not a good idea to be too offensive. You should strike the right balance between offense & defense.
Conclusion
It’s one thing to plan your sales strategy and sales cadence. But it’s another. You and your sales team can execute the strategy more efficiently if you follow all the do’s and avoid all the don’ts.
A well-planned strategy will help you propel your business to greater heights.
