What’s the impact of a prospecting email that has nothing to do with you, the recipient? It’s precisely zero. Even worse, bad messaging hurts the brand that sends it. Why is this still happening, over and over again? It’s the era of social selling, isn’t it? Why are the easiest tools and approaches still not applied, not to mention common sense?
It’s astonishing to see how many salespeople, often driven by their managers, waste their time sending out countless prospecting emails that are completely useless. Just like this one, which I received a few weeks ago. I changed everything that could identify the sender; I have no interest in blaming somebody. My focus is to evolve the sales profession, and to learn from examples. Here you go:
Hello!
I’m writing to follow up with you about XYZ. We help over XX,000 salespeople every single day with our platform.
We work online, offline, on any device, with any OS, and integrate with any CRM in the world. We’re the most flexible tool you’ll ever use! Check out our Brochure to see why we’re the best on the market.
Let me know if there is any interest in XYZ, or enhancing existing sales tools. I’d love to set up a quick call this upcoming week.
All the best,
XYZ
How would you react to message? How would you feel? Inclined to respond? Probably not, because the message has nothing to do with you.
Prospecting goes still wrong in so many cases, even though we have all the technology and all the concepts that can help us to avoid the biggest mistakes. Just trying harder with old approaches that were already questionable a decade ago is not a winning strategy, nor is it a best practice. Why should we ever increase a bad practice, such as sending countless, but useless, prospecting emails, hoping to achieve a different result? As Albert Einstein is supposed to have said, repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
Lead generation becomes more and more a sales priority. According to our CSO Insights 2015 Sales Management Optimization Study, improving lead generation effectiveness is the most important sales management priority (47.9%), followed by the ability to improve and show strategic value (34.7%). Yes, sales leaders focus more and more on the volume and quality of leads entering their funnel. They also know that marketing cannot create all the leads that are necessary to achieve ambitious growth goals. Sales has to generate 45.9% of the leads on their own, and marketing generates 25.2%, according to our CSO Insights 2015 Sales Performance Management Study, followed by referrals (20.4%), and customer service (8.5%).
Lead generation quality can only be achieved if there is an approach in place that is focused on the potential buyer’s role and challenges, leveraging all information that’s available to make sure to create the highest possible impact with a tailored message. Let’s see how to get there:
- Use a personal salutation: “Hello” is nice, but omitting the recipient’s name is a missed opportunity to make it personal.
- Do your research: The salesperson didn’t do enough research. I might be in their CRM, or in a bought buyer database, but this data has not been verified for years. My previous role as VP of global sales force enablement and transformation ended in 2013. My current role as an analyst should be of interest for this organization, but not as a potential buyer. All that is available right at a salesperson’s fingertips. The tools are called LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, etc. It’s not difficult to find me online, and the minute it may take, just to verify my current role and my employer is not a “nice to have” option, it’s essential. Not leveraging these tools shows that you don’t care.
- Tailor your message to the prospect: Whatever message you want to get across, can only be successful if it happen in the context of the person’s role and challenges. What’s wrong with the message above? It’s only about the vendor, how awesome they are. There is not even the attempt to connect the value they promise to my role and what it could mean for me, my challenges and my goals. The impact this vendor-centric message makes to me is precisely zero.
Prospecting is a team sport, and salespeople need support to get better every day: from enablement and their sales managers.
- A note to the sales managers – less is more: I know you are often measured by the craziest metrics (as our data says), but please stand up and help to end this insanity. Prospecting cannot be successful if we measure primarily the quantity of activities, as the number of emails or calls. The collateral damage of this behavior, which impacts the brand as well, is way too big, and often not considered. And the value you get in return is too small. So, it’s not efficient; I’m not even talking about effectiveness. Collaborate with marketing and enablement to provide your teams with buyer-centric value messages, ideally specific to role and industry. And coach them along the way. Less is more.
- A note to sales enablement leaders – provide value-based messaging templates: In case this wasn’t on your agenda so far, now it is. Value messaging for prospecting purposes has to be provided to sales teams. The value messaging here has to be consistent to the value messaging that’s used throughout the entire customer’s journey. Ideally, sales enablement is the function to orchestrate this endeavor, together with marketing. Collaborate also with the frontline sales managers to ensure that their coaching is consistent and that they measure more quality than quantity, more outcome than output, more effectiveness than efficiency.
These are basic steps to improve lead generation effectiveness, focused on one example: emails to prospects. Please check out my blog posts regarding value messaging criteria, the impact of different buying scenarios, and the various value messaging types along the customer’s journey.