Hot & Cold
Inbound and outbound strategies to help identify, develop and drive more leads
Colder is Bolder?
Caveat: I really shouldn’t be the one writing about this one. If you want to see a true artist in action, follow James Thornburg and his consistently persistent process. So much we can learn from his approach, temperament, and hustle.
In this week’s edition of Stretch Weekly -
Chorus gifts us with two Cold-Calling Scripts to Help Your Team Schedule More Meetings
XANT’s 2021 Lead Response Study re-inforces that a 5 minute response time is optimal
Sabrina Jowders with LeadiQ shares her 6 Do's and Dont’s of Cold Calling
And don’t miss some HOT and COLD Snippets with tactical tips to develop and drive more leads.
THANKS for reading!!
-Grant
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STRETCH SHARES
Cold-Calling Scripts to Help Your Team Schedule More Meetings
Having been in sales for nearly 20 years, I would agree with Chorus here that cold-calling is one of the hardest things to perfect in sales.
The average connected cold-call lasts just 80 seconds. The average SUCCESSFUL cold-call lasts 7.5 minutes!
It's difficult to prompt a long conversation. But that’s what it takes to have a successful call. The best cold-calling scripts, cold-calling team strategy, and coaching processes need to focus on how to have longer, more meaningful conversations.
Chorus outlines two scripts - The Systematic and The Freewheeling, that we can use to help our team schedule more meetings.
You’ll still need to finalize with your own team’s unique messaging, but these two templates will be a great place to start.
Response Time Matters
I had a discussion with a group of sales leaders the other day, specifically on lead response time and best practices here. I referenced a few studies I had come across that pointed towards an optimal timeframe of 5 minutes or less (included in snippets below).
Coincidentally, XANT just released their 2021 Lead Response Study and accompanying infographic that backs me up. Some key points:
Tuesday = Best day to call INBOUND leads. Mon/Thur tie for second best.
Mornings, 6 -11 am = best time to call INBOUND leads. 8-11 am = best time for OUTBOUND.
5 min = Optimal. Conversion rates are 8X higher when responding to INBOUND within 5 minutes.
Persistence = key. 7 or more follow-up attempts yields 15% more connections.
6 Do's and Don'ts of Cold Calling
Sabrina Jowders with LeadiQ argues that cold calling often gets a bad wrap. But says it’s still one of the most effective tools for breaking into an account and getting a hold of a prospect.
In this article, she shares her 6 Do's and Dont’s of Cold Calling for sales reps to do better and make cold calling an enjoyable experience for both sides of the phone.
The Do’s:
Be Yourself, Be confident, Provide value, Recognize “NO” isn’t a failure, Focus on Relationship building, Leave voicemails.
The Don’ts:
Take it personally, Jump straight into your pitch, Waste their time, Hang up w/out a follow-up, Forget the prospect is the focus, Try to overcome all concerns & objections.
Insightful post with some great reminders to pass along and share in your next team training.
STRETCH SNIPPETS
⏰ “Is now a bad time?” Nick Cegelski gives us the second worst way to open a cold call. But it did leave us wondering - what’s the worst?
🎤 Ryan Scalera knocks it out of the park with this custom video to land a meeting with Gravy. Did it work? He just presented to the WHOLE team of 80!
📨 Josh Braun puts Patrick Joyce, one of the top-performing SDRs in the USA on the spot to write a cold email for us to learn from.
🤔 Sam Nelson spent over a year focused exclusively on managing SDRs during their first 90 days and learned some important lessons...
🚀 “You can reach almost any CEO or executive via cold email. Yes, it works. Almost every top exec reads their email every day. If you craft literally the world-best email, it will get read by almost any leader”. - Jason Lemkin
⏳ THIS article from Qualified as well as THIS one from Hubspot provides even more validation for the “5-minute rule” for responding to inbound leads.
🎓 LinkedIn 101: How to Capture, Export, and Prospect Your LinkedIn Connections courtesy of LeadIQ
📞 Leave a message or nah? Mor Assouline outlines his 3 use-cases for leaving voice messages and what to say when.
⏤> Learn how to prospect with the famous Justin Michael Spear Method in this crafty infographic from Jen Ferguson and the team at InsideOut.
🧠 Mindset
Thanks for reading!
My hope is if you find this valuable, consider sharing it with friends (or signing up if you haven’t already).
— Grant 👋
About stretch vp: confessions, learnings, and insights from sales leaders in SaaS
Compiled and aggregated from a network of sales leaders in SaaS, Stretch VP showcases learnings, insights, and experiences as well as best practices to overcome common hurdles, obstacles, and setbacks in your quest for excellence as a sales leader in SaaS.
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