Sales Talk Today: Leading Executives Discuss Best Practices for the Moment

Doing business in a pandemic has forced sales teams to recalibrate their strategies and approach. Continuing Vertex US’s exploration of how executives are adapting this year, we held a virtual roundtable with sales leaders to discuss how their strategies and practices have shifted. Participants from Broker Buddha, Evisort, Forestry, Gitpod, Hasura, PerimeterX, Upsolver, Very Good Security, Vintra, and more, shared their insights on best practices for sales success today. Here’s what these leaders are keeping top of mind:

Referrals, Brand Awareness, and Personalized Emails Core to Outbound Lead Success

Leaders found these three areas to be the strongest options for generating outbound leads. Email marketing campaigns and paid Facebook advertising were noted among the least successful methods right now. Referrals, from customers and partners, are still helpful; having a customer attest to a product’s value can be more powerful than a sales rep’s take. Additionally, personalizing emails increases the likelihood of engagement. In a time when many folks are inundated with email, people respond to what they recognize. Execs emphasized the success they’d found through LinkedIn, as well. One company encourages its salespeople to make a monthly personal post on LinkedIn to add variety among their standard sales posts. This lightens the emphasis on selling and instead deepens relatability and fosters relationship building.

Another found success through a multi-channel approach. After enriching their data with Salesforce led to email deliverability issues, they pivoted to using a combination of personalized emails, phone calls, and LinkedIn messages for outreach. They recommend Expandi for sequencing at a LinkedIn level, which has helped open a new channel for their SDR team to communicate with prospects.

Other noteworthy tools for personalizing messages include 6Sense, which centers on intent, and Terminus, an ABM tool that provides insight on prospect’s behavior.

Don’t Underestimate the Widespread Reality of Email Fatigue

As the current path to customers is primarily digital, most everyone is taking the same route. This has resulted in an extraordinary amount of inbox traffic, overwhelming prospects and decreasing the success of ordinary email marketing campaigns. To combat this, every email should share useful knowledge or training relevant to the market space, technology, or product. That means that coupon codes or invitations to a demonstration or don’t quite hit the mark here. Make your message something that will be useful to the reader whether they decide to become a customer of yours or not.

Early this year, one company paused outbound sales altogether and turned their energy inward to focus on current clients. Their sales team asked existing clients what challenges they were facing, what they were worried about in the future, and what was changing for them in light of the pandemic. These conversations helped inform the company’s messaging when pursuing prospective clients. Rather than starting messages with “things are tough in these crazy times,” (we all realize we’re in unprecedented circumstances) shift to zeroing in on how you can add value. You can point to the times without directly referencing them. Build messages by addressing the top questions or challenges you think your prospects may be facing.

Pivoting Focus to Generating Inbound Leads

With the effectiveness of email in question, companies have turned their focus to cultivating inbound activity. Many have found teaching and learning events to be a great source of inbound leads.

Some are hosting hack-a-thons and digital office hours, where the recorded event is distributed to individuals who registered but didn’t attend after all. Another company holds webinars, with some featuring industry thought leaders from inside and outside the company, and others giving customers an opportunity to ask questions, share challenges, and gain support. The company drives attendance by offering $15 for lunch delivery. In a throwback move, one company sent hand-written faxes and got an amazing response rate. Creative approaches are winning the day.

Find a Way to Engender Goodwill

Offering goodwill can go a long way. Companies are focusing on how they can be a helpful resource for clients. When PPP interest grew, a company whose product digitizes PDFs began offering a digital version of the form for free.

Another company tied its outreach to a social impact initiative. If a lead took a 15-minute sales call, the company would donate to a 501c3 nonprofit in their name. You get to share your pitch. The non-profit gains funds, and the prospect is recognized for their support for an organization. The value is abundant here.

Building Camaraderie Virtually

For companies who weren’t fully remote before the pandemic hit, leaders have had to get creative in designing new team building activities to keep people connected. Holding virtual lunches and happy hours, daily stand-ups, and all-hands meetings — and doing so more frequently — has helped bridge the gap. One company’s monthly meeting invites a co-worker to share their unique skill or hobby outside of work and has featured everything from cello playing to winemaking. Others have fostered connection throughout their staff by asking folks across departments to contribute to a small gift for a coworker in need.

Zoom background contests, virtual hack-a-thons, and other games are popular. Others have fostered friendly competition with contests that improve their product. One company’s “Bug Bash” challenged teams built of individuals across departments to find the most product bugs. Another event where teams raced to discover ways of making their SaaS offering more user-friendly resulted in helpful, innovative ideas. From Harry Potter-themed product demo contests (complete with cash prizes) to reviewing “game tapes” of sales calls and identifying areas of improvement, company leaders are prioritizing team building in this remote environment.

A big thanks to all of our participants! Have a question or want to share an innovative solution your sales team has implemented recently? Get in touch here.