If you’d like to hear unexpected steps to a great cold call, including brand-new pattern interrupts, then this is the episode for you.
Join us as we discuss with Becc Holland, CEO & Founder at Flip the Script:
- Why you should get monomaniacal about timing
- What three metrics to use to know your buyer
- How pattern interrupts can help you build human connection
Timing is everything
Starting out as an account executive, selling utilities to schools and government organizations, Becc evolved into an SDR in the tech space.
It was perfect timing since it opened her eyes to the myriad of channels and methodologies now available for selling even the most ‘orthodox’ of products and services.
It drove her to create Flip the Script as an extra resource for those looking to learn about the gap she had discovered organically on her career path.
Cold calling is done to death
This is precisely why Becc is here: to share her refreshing take on the channel and its value for your business.
She launches her series of points by highlighting timing. When are you making the first call? When do you follow up? Before you even start to introduce quality drivers into the process, you need to time your call well enough to deploy those quality-lifting tactics.
A full-time cold-calling prospector is likely going to make up to 40 cold calls each and every day, only landing two or three connections. Is your team investigating the timing of those connections:
- In the context of the workday (day/week/time/season)?
- In the context of their buying journey (is the prospect even aware of your brand/offering/reputation for solving the problem they have)?
- In the context of tax season and compliance workflows?
- Considering bank holidays and other festive occasions?
Becc drops a lifeline for you at this point: try dialling prospects on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons instead of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings (when they’re most likely unable to accept your call).
You’re likely to find that your contact and response rates as well as your ratio of meetings booked from initial calls, will increase after you implement this.
Working with data and spare time
In Becc’s world, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning slots are now reserved for research, critical thinking time and working with the actual business data.
It’s important to deploy a control when you’re testing for the most effective times to make your cold calls. Don’t just take it for granted that one slot works better than another, and make sure that you’re validating your findings continually.
Three revealing buyer metrics
Beneath the surface of ‘knowing your buyer’ usually lies the metrics creating that holistic perspective.
Each business function and management or operational level will prioritize different metrics.
Each metric can be classified as a leading, leaning or lagging indicator and this is where you and your SDRs are best off with your focus.
Leading indicators
Becc defines leading indicators as inputs that are independent from other indicators, that determine the outcome of a lagging indicator.
Take weight loss, for example. Leading indicators in the journey toward a weight loss goal might include caloric intake, portion size and food type or food group ratios per meal. Each of these metrics influences the weight loss outcome.
Leaning indicators
Becc defines a leaning indicator as a resultant indicator of a leading indicator. It’s also not possible to optimize for these in isolation but professionals often falsely believe that they do.
SDRs’ main leaning indicators would be open, response and connect rates.
Lagging indicators
This is the outcome and target the business is achieving. To reference the same example as when we spoke about leading indicators, it’s the actual amount of weight lost, based on the leading and leaning indicators like caloric intake and inches lost off the waistline.
With all this said, it’s clear that knowing your buyer means to know what they’re hired and fired for. Knowing the job they have to do in their roles makes you a more effective problem solver in their world.
How pattern interrupts can help you build human connection
Timing and buyer metrics are the least engaged aspects of cold outreach optimization, which is why Becc always starts off referring to these items when giving advice.
Individualized messaging
It’s the third least practiced tactic. Personalization is a term that gets thrown around often, but Becc is talking about individualized messaging.
As a pattern interrupt, it drastically increases the odds in your favor, of being remembered and entrusted with critical buying journey questions and other information that can’t be scraped off a social platform.
Instead of competing with 1,000 similar emails, you’d be having one of three similar conversations and be able to use your differentiators in establishing rapport, to build up trust in the relationship.
Individualization is personalization on steroids and you have options for testing and implementing it:
- Problem-centric personalization
- Strong hook personalization
- Light hook personalization
Five things to personalize when creating a pattern interrupt
Need help figuring out your starting point? Here’s Becc’s advice:
- Refer to your prospect’s self-authored content
- Mention any engaged content (content that your prospect has engaged with on a platform where you spend time)
- Touch on self-identified traits like the ones in your prospect’s ‘About’ or ‘Headline’ sections on their LinkedIn profile (or even their employing company’s description)
- Pick something up from the proverbial junk drawer (schools attended, hobbies, recommendations, skills endorsements and interests)
- Link to something going on at a company level (mergers and acquisitions, articles, feature releases etc.)
For the juiciest insights on applying Becc’s other steps, you’ll have to catch the full episode.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Sales Engagement in your favorite podcast player.
Recent Comments