In sales, every contact attempt you make matters. Timing it correctly is going to decide whether you are able to close the deal or not.
In this article, we are going to share some of the best tips that will help you in crafting the perfect sales cadence and avoid any mistakes that might jeopardize your sales.
What is a sales cadence?
Sales cadence is the chain of steps a salesperson takes in order to close a sale with a prospect. The steps may include any kind of attempt made to contact the prospect such as sending emails, making phone calls, voicemails and any interaction through social media platforms.
Getting the sales cadence right is very important as a wrong sales cadence can annoy the prospect and eliminate any chance of closing the deal. A perfect sales cadence will lead to an increase in conversion rate and help the salesperson with a framework to easily work with,
7 tips for crafting the perfect sales cadence
- Make your first attempt through email or social media platform
Directly calling the prospect on phone in the first contact can come off as aggressive. Contacting them through email or social media sites is a safe medium. Once the relationship is built it is ok to call the prospect on the phone.
- Timing your contact attempts is important
Contacting your prospects frequently without much gap in between can make you look spammy and close any opportunity you have of closing the deal. It is also important that you don’t keep the gaps too long.
The most favorable timing is to keep at least a day’s gap in between contacts but no more than 3-4 days. You also need to increase the gap in between contacts after each unsuccessful attempt.
- Experiment with your sales cadence and adjust
To get the best results it is important to keep on experimenting with your sales cadence and see which one gets you the best results. To do so you will require to check the correct metrics such as on which contact attempt you are getting a response, open rates of your emails, which content has a high response rate, how many attempts it takes to close a deal and how many prospects you are able to close a deal with.
The best way to test is through A/B testing. It involves choosing two sales cadence and finding the one that works the best. You then take the winning cadence and experiment with a new one and so on.
- Use the right sales tools
For being able to create a perfect sales cadence you need the right sales tools. These may include email management, customer relationship management, social media and phone tools. These tools help the salesperson maintain a steady flow that won’t be disturbed by other factors.
Also by using the right sales engagement tools you will be able to scale your operation by automating and removing time-consuming processes. The sales tools help increase productivity and save time. With the right tools, sales cadence can be run on autopilot with the salesperson only being notified on a response from the prospect. This gives the salesperson enough time to manage relationships with leads who are showing positive responses.
- Keep a check on the number of touchpoints
The optimate touches per prospect should be in between 10-15. It usually takes 12 touches to close a deal. But it is important to remember that the quality is equally important as the number of attempts made. Salespersons making more than 10 contact attempts have a higher success rate.
- Have a clear purpose for each touch
Every contact attempt you make with the prospect should have a clear objective of what you want to achieve through that action. Also, your call to action should match your purpose of contact.
- Understand your target audience
Before contacting your prospects it is important to personalize the communication messages. Your messages shouldn’t sound as they have been written for a wide audience. The more personalized the messages are the better response you can expect.
For personalized messages, you will have to understand your prospects. This can be done by researching a bit about them when there is a small list of prospects or when the prospect list is huge you can try batching the prospects based on things they have in common. In your research, you can look for the problems your prospects are facing, their goals and any other thing that can help you connect with them better.
An example of a sales cadence that works
- Research about the prospect
- InMail on LinkedIn
- Follow-up on the InMail you sent previously
- Move to Email
- Again Follow-up on the Email
- Shift to Phone
- Social Media Platforms – Try tagging the prospect on a post of informational article related to their field.
- Video Email
- Social Media Platforms – Could be LinkedIn or some other social media website
- Voice Mail
- Phone
Wrapping Up
Sales cadence gives the salesperson a framework on which he can rely to close deals. Of course, not every sales cadence is going to bring success from the start. You have to A/B test and find the winning one.
Sales cadence can help increase the number of deals a salesperson is able to close and save time. It is also important to use the sales cadence carefully as too frequent contacts or wrong contact mediums can end up pushing the prospect away from you.
The right sales cadence and engagement tool can end up giving a huge boost to the sales and save the time of the salesperson which can be used in growing relationships with leads.
By using the above tips for creating a perfect sales cadence you will be able to see results in your sales report in no time.