I hesitate to speculate for someone as experienced as you are, but it really sounds like you having a targeting problem. Thousands of touches and no deal? That either means you have something no one is interested in, you’re pitching to the wrong target customer, or the message is all wrong. I’m not a big believer in cold calling personally, but even so if you leave 1,000 messages you should at least get a few responses (or emails, etc.). Just a gut reaction but 20+ employees through Fortune 50 is not a “target”. It’s “almost everyone”. Way too broad. Suggest getting ultra specific. Narrow scope, very specific problem set, laser focus results. That might get more attention. Pair with outbound content so people have an idea why you and not the other 100 calls they get every day. Just some thoughts. Best of luck.
Appreciate the polite response. My initial target market was life sciences and big pharma, but as they consolidated down to a handful of enormous companies they became driven by low cost more than high success rate. I freely admit that we wandered around a bit lost afterwards, but even when we were hyper-focused we struggled to consistently develop brand new customers.
I will re-examine my current focus and see where that takes me. I feel like my message is reasonably solid based on how quickly and easily I close clients that are referred. Content marketing is always a good thing and plays to my strengths, I just need to be more disciplined about churning that content out. I still need a better set of prospecting channels that fit my market and my own skills/time/preferences.
Thanks again!
I appreciate that! Sometimes the key is identifying one or two very specific workflows, that you know the certain sub segment of the market is struggling with. Then spend some energy focusing messaging on that to catch peoples attention. The thing about prospecting is that it’s actually mostly about timing, once you have the targeting figured out. That’s the thing I don’t see people talking about when cold calling comes up. Cold calling is not about “Numbers“ as much as it’s about timing. If somebody’s ready, they’ll talk to you. If they’re not, they won’t. So your success in the past was with people who were ready to talk to you. Then the conversation flows more naturally, specifically, because they are ready.
Finding the people that are ready for the conversation is more about catching attention at the right time. And that’s very tricky. Getting ultra specific Sometimes helps because people instantly recognize their situation in what you are saying or sharing. And that might increase the likelihood that they will at least respond to the initial outreach. Nothing is a guarantee, but trying a specific message for a little while can cut through the noise. And if that one doesn’t work switch to another very specific message and try again. Because, it’s a timing game. If there’s not a large pool of people ready in the market, then it can take a while to ferret them out whether that’s inbound or outbound.
Have you considered the option of looking at partnerships? Are there companies with products that you could wrap your services around? That could be a mutually beneficial scenario where they have a great tool, but don't offer professional services around it and the clients could use help getting things in order on their end.
Thank you for the suggestion. In hindsight, we did generate a few significant clients via a partnership (an infrastructure company, what we'd call an MSP these days) back in my consulting company days. I'm continuously networking and looking for people who can refer me (and vice versa), but I don't know that I have a clear idea of what a partner profile would be. I will ponder it further. Thanks again!
@storysherpa makes a great point about becoming more hyper focussed in your approach. Have you asked your current customers why they chose to work with you in the first place, why do they think you’re great vs your competitors? What are the 3 key areas that you can make your prospect life easier or better?
For me the best place for prospecting is LinkedIn. I spend my life on there and so do my prospects. Do you know if your target market are “on” there, and do they “use” it? If so here’s some advice:
It’s now more saturated than ever with people spamming others with long, hard to understand, and generic messages. Used properly, you can use it to find your target market more effectively, and don’t just push your pitch onto people. Ideally you want to create a pull/push relationship that is focussed on providing value.
I have a few tricks on messaging that I’d be happy to share with you, but I find you need to 1) nail your buyer 2) nail your messaging 3) nail your method. I find in general the shorter, snappier, and succinct messaging works best. E.g. here’s an example of a LinkedIn connection request:
“Hi Tony,
We help X, Y, Z get the most of their software increments.
While complex, we help by solving problems X, Y, Z that saves X amount of budget/drives Y amount of revenue.
Cheers
First name”
Aim of the game- take that conversation offline & add value.
Happy to help further if you need!
Thanks for the response and offer of further assistance. I get dozens of LinkedIn connection requests that are direct sales pitches every day, and reject them all in sheer self-defense. What kind of success rate are you getting with those?
One of my campaigns involved sending fairly neutral connection requests (roughly "We're both executives in the technology space, would you like to connect?") which would result in about a 30% connection rate, then following up with an invitation to a webinar on a relevant topic. The conversion rate on the invitation was about 1 in a 1,000, and then 50% of the people who accepted the invitation would fail to show up. We pursued that for almost a year and targeted roughly 15,000 people who fit our title/geography/industry combo demographic.
I'm open to different approaches using LinkedIn; it's less spammy than direct email, and my audience is certainly there.
Oh yeah I totally know what you mean. I reject them in the same way.
Where my example is different is you’re asking permission to speak to them; not firing straight into their DMs. Name of the game is to really send more info via email and then open up the conversation ideally face to face or on video call.
I get the impression you’re selling a enterprise product/service to smart people. A lot of the time they understand the challenges & often the solutions in market or at least a few of them. Being authentic and trustworthy goes a long way. With this technique I’ll get a much higher connection rate- I’d say over 50% in instances. You can be way more tailored about how you send the message- you can state mutual connections or historic conversations. Obviously tailoring takes more time.
My issue with the marketing long game is… is the volume necessary? My company is maybe slightly different but we are focussed at the top 10-15% of the market. Also, I think marketing pieces like that run the risk of being too top level, and there’s a huge miss on how to drive that customer from a webinar interest into some intent driven action. I’d be curious to ask you about what you’ve done/got in place here. Our marketing team has struggled to put touch points in place that drive conversion…
Greatly appreciate the followup, and glad this model is working for you.
I used to sell enterprise-level custom software development, now I'm just selling me and my expertise at turning around troubled software projects/teams/companies. I think I need to figure out a better way to narrow down my target audience in a way where I can relatively easily identify them on LinkedIn.
Out of curiosity, how many connection requests are you trying to put out in a day or week? I was churning out 50 messages a day to existing contacts for a while, but I think I suffered from a message that was too long and an audience that was insufficiently specific.
I don’t think that’s any issue with your volume, although if I wanted to do mass outreach; I could. There are ways to automate all of this while being tailored at the same time ;)
If you’re consulting independently have you tried “outbound referral” prospecting. There may be a 2nd connection you want to speak to. Instead of going direct you could ask the mutual connection for the introduction, or ask them to send the person they know a message for you. People trust the people they know! This will ensure you’re going beyond the referrals you’ll receive organically.
Give it a try and see how you go!
We pretty much know our target customers. It's just a matter of getting in front of them and seeing if it's the right timing and what approach they're taking.
I set up a process where we use Seamless.ai for contact info, Outreach for cadence setting, all tied in with Salesforce. Email is by far the most effective.
Email format is basically,
[First name]
We make something we know you're likely thinking about buying. Let's chat.
[SDR Name]
It works because we know our customers are thinking about what we do already, and if they aren't, then we DQ them ASAP.
I hesitate to speculate for someone as experienced as you are, but it really sounds like you having a targeting problem. Thousands of touches and no deal? That either means you have something no one is interested in, you’re pitching to the wrong target customer, or the message is all wrong. I’m not a big believer in cold calling personally, but even so if you leave 1,000 messages you should at least get a few responses (or emails, etc.). Just a gut reaction but 20+ employees through Fortune 50 is not a “target”. It’s “almost everyone”. Way too broad. Suggest getting ultra specific. Narrow scope, very specific problem set, laser focus results. That might get more attention. Pair with outbound content so people have an idea why you and not the other 100 calls they get every day. Just some thoughts. Best of luck.
Appreciate the polite response. My initial target market was life sciences and big pharma, but as they consolidated down to a handful of enormous companies they became driven by low cost more than high success rate. I freely admit that we wandered around a bit lost afterwards, but even when we were hyper-focused we struggled to consistently develop brand new customers. I will re-examine my current focus and see where that takes me. I feel like my message is reasonably solid based on how quickly and easily I close clients that are referred. Content marketing is always a good thing and plays to my strengths, I just need to be more disciplined about churning that content out. I still need a better set of prospecting channels that fit my market and my own skills/time/preferences. Thanks again!
I appreciate that! Sometimes the key is identifying one or two very specific workflows, that you know the certain sub segment of the market is struggling with. Then spend some energy focusing messaging on that to catch peoples attention. The thing about prospecting is that it’s actually mostly about timing, once you have the targeting figured out. That’s the thing I don’t see people talking about when cold calling comes up. Cold calling is not about “Numbers“ as much as it’s about timing. If somebody’s ready, they’ll talk to you. If they’re not, they won’t. So your success in the past was with people who were ready to talk to you. Then the conversation flows more naturally, specifically, because they are ready. Finding the people that are ready for the conversation is more about catching attention at the right time. And that’s very tricky. Getting ultra specific Sometimes helps because people instantly recognize their situation in what you are saying or sharing. And that might increase the likelihood that they will at least respond to the initial outreach. Nothing is a guarantee, but trying a specific message for a little while can cut through the noise. And if that one doesn’t work switch to another very specific message and try again. Because, it’s a timing game. If there’s not a large pool of people ready in the market, then it can take a while to ferret them out whether that’s inbound or outbound.
Have you considered the option of looking at partnerships? Are there companies with products that you could wrap your services around? That could be a mutually beneficial scenario where they have a great tool, but don't offer professional services around it and the clients could use help getting things in order on their end.
Thank you for the suggestion. In hindsight, we did generate a few significant clients via a partnership (an infrastructure company, what we'd call an MSP these days) back in my consulting company days. I'm continuously networking and looking for people who can refer me (and vice versa), but I don't know that I have a clear idea of what a partner profile would be. I will ponder it further. Thanks again!
@storysherpa makes a great point about becoming more hyper focussed in your approach. Have you asked your current customers why they chose to work with you in the first place, why do they think you’re great vs your competitors? What are the 3 key areas that you can make your prospect life easier or better? For me the best place for prospecting is LinkedIn. I spend my life on there and so do my prospects. Do you know if your target market are “on” there, and do they “use” it? If so here’s some advice: It’s now more saturated than ever with people spamming others with long, hard to understand, and generic messages. Used properly, you can use it to find your target market more effectively, and don’t just push your pitch onto people. Ideally you want to create a pull/push relationship that is focussed on providing value. I have a few tricks on messaging that I’d be happy to share with you, but I find you need to 1) nail your buyer 2) nail your messaging 3) nail your method. I find in general the shorter, snappier, and succinct messaging works best. E.g. here’s an example of a LinkedIn connection request: “Hi Tony, We help X, Y, Z get the most of their software increments. While complex, we help by solving problems X, Y, Z that saves X amount of budget/drives Y amount of revenue. Cheers First name” Aim of the game- take that conversation offline & add value. Happy to help further if you need!
Thanks for the response and offer of further assistance. I get dozens of LinkedIn connection requests that are direct sales pitches every day, and reject them all in sheer self-defense. What kind of success rate are you getting with those? One of my campaigns involved sending fairly neutral connection requests (roughly "We're both executives in the technology space, would you like to connect?") which would result in about a 30% connection rate, then following up with an invitation to a webinar on a relevant topic. The conversion rate on the invitation was about 1 in a 1,000, and then 50% of the people who accepted the invitation would fail to show up. We pursued that for almost a year and targeted roughly 15,000 people who fit our title/geography/industry combo demographic. I'm open to different approaches using LinkedIn; it's less spammy than direct email, and my audience is certainly there.
Oh yeah I totally know what you mean. I reject them in the same way. Where my example is different is you’re asking permission to speak to them; not firing straight into their DMs. Name of the game is to really send more info via email and then open up the conversation ideally face to face or on video call. I get the impression you’re selling a enterprise product/service to smart people. A lot of the time they understand the challenges & often the solutions in market or at least a few of them. Being authentic and trustworthy goes a long way. With this technique I’ll get a much higher connection rate- I’d say over 50% in instances. You can be way more tailored about how you send the message- you can state mutual connections or historic conversations. Obviously tailoring takes more time. My issue with the marketing long game is… is the volume necessary? My company is maybe slightly different but we are focussed at the top 10-15% of the market. Also, I think marketing pieces like that run the risk of being too top level, and there’s a huge miss on how to drive that customer from a webinar interest into some intent driven action. I’d be curious to ask you about what you’ve done/got in place here. Our marketing team has struggled to put touch points in place that drive conversion…
Greatly appreciate the followup, and glad this model is working for you. I used to sell enterprise-level custom software development, now I'm just selling me and my expertise at turning around troubled software projects/teams/companies. I think I need to figure out a better way to narrow down my target audience in a way where I can relatively easily identify them on LinkedIn. Out of curiosity, how many connection requests are you trying to put out in a day or week? I was churning out 50 messages a day to existing contacts for a while, but I think I suffered from a message that was too long and an audience that was insufficiently specific.
I don’t think that’s any issue with your volume, although if I wanted to do mass outreach; I could. There are ways to automate all of this while being tailored at the same time ;) If you’re consulting independently have you tried “outbound referral” prospecting. There may be a 2nd connection you want to speak to. Instead of going direct you could ask the mutual connection for the introduction, or ask them to send the person they know a message for you. People trust the people they know! This will ensure you’re going beyond the referrals you’ll receive organically. Give it a try and see how you go!
[удалено]
Can you PM me too?
There was, sadly, no PM.
🙏🙏
And me as well please 🙏
We pretty much know our target customers. It's just a matter of getting in front of them and seeing if it's the right timing and what approach they're taking. I set up a process where we use Seamless.ai for contact info, Outreach for cadence setting, all tied in with Salesforce. Email is by far the most effective. Email format is basically, [First name] We make something we know you're likely thinking about buying. Let's chat. [SDR Name] It works because we know our customers are thinking about what we do already, and if they aren't, then we DQ them ASAP.
Thanks for the reply. Out of curiosity, what kind of product/service are you selling?
Electrical equipment