Over achieve your Sales Quota using AI
Featuring insights from our last webinar, this newsletter is filled with proven tactics to help you achieve your sales goals using account prioritization, research and personalization.
Did you attend our recent webinar, "Over-achieve Your Sales Quota Using AI"? If not, you missed some key insights, tips and outreach techniques.
We had three sales champions as guest speakers who have been helping sales professionals crush their quotas.
- Tom Slocum - Founder & CEO of SD Lab, Top 20 LinkedIn Sales Insider, and a cold-calling guru.
- Thomas Alaimo: The founder of TA Sales, known for his Outbound Pipeline Bootcamps and Sales Trainings.
- Savannah Martin: Senior Sales Enablement Manager at HireEZ, and an expert in sales enablement.
We addressed the following key questions like:
- Why aren’t sales teams hitting their quotas?
- Where is the process being inefficient?
- How can account prioritization, research, and personalization make a difference?
- What's the best outreach strategy for getting responses?
- What does a new, AI-driven process look like?
On a special demand from participants, who couldn’t attend the webinar, we decided to share the key learnings in our newsletter along with recordings.
Ready? Let’s start…
Why aren’t sales teams hitting their quotas?
Sales teams are facing a series of challenges today. Here’s why hitting sales quotas has become increasingly difficult..
Market Shifts
1. Traditional methods like email spams and cold calling are becoming less effective as the market evolves.
2. Sales teams are expected to do more with less. SDRs are now supposed to produce the same results with fewer resources, while AEs (Account Executives) are now asked to engage in prospecting as well.
Increased Expectations
3. Buyers have become more selective. SDRs and AEs should be more personalized and business relevant to get the attention.
4. The process of qualifying leads and moving them through the sales funnel has become more complex and less predictive. Thus it requires more effort, strategic planning, and process revamp.
Noise in the Market
5. Inboxes are flooded with automated messages and custom spam filters. The chances for your email to get noticed is minimal.
6. Even with power dialers, getting to conversation from call-pick is extremely difficult. This requires more contextual, business specific and engaging opening lines.
Leadership and Enablement
7. Many sales leaders who succeeded through cold emailing are not equipped to train their teams in personalized cold calling.
8. Sales reps are getting demotivated when consistently facing budget constraints and rejections.
The spray-and-pray approach no longer works. Success now requires fewer but more personalized and targeted outreach efforts.
Here is a link to a recording of “Why aren’t sales teams hitting their quotas?”
Where is the process being inefficient?
Sales processes often fail in multiple areas, causing inefficiencies and missed quotas. Here's where things go wrong..
Many sales teams just start without a clear strategy. This results in Random Outreach
Chasing high numbers of meetings often dilutes the quality of interactions. Booking meetings just to meet a quota or pushing through deals without deep qualification are complete failures.
How many times have we heard "cold calling is dead '' or "emails don’t work"? These assumptions on outreach methods can limit your effectiveness.
Tom Slocum shared an innovative approach where his team tried cold Facetime calls. Imagine the surprise on a VP’s face when they receive a Facetime instead of a call.
Here is a link to a recording of “Where is the process being inefficient?”
How can account prioritization, research, and personalization make a difference?
Account prioritization, research, and personalization are the three primary pillars of the new sales process.
Why to actually prioritize accounts?
Not all accounts have a similar need for your product/service. Prioritizing your accounts as per their interest, business preferences or web interactions helps you focus on the most promising leads.
I remember a time when I spent weeks nurturing a lead only to find out they weren’t the decision-maker. Had I prioritized my accounts better, I could have avoided this and focused on more qualified prospects.
Why Research?
Knowing your prospect’s pain points, business goals, and industry trends allows you to hyper personalize your communication and offer real value.
One of our team members closed a significant deal by mentioning a recent award the prospect’s company had won. This personalized touch showed we were genuinely interested and attentive, setting us apart from competitors.
Why Personalization?
Generic emails and calls don’t get the attention anymore. Hyper Personalization (not just personalization with “Name”) makes your outreach more contextual, relevant and engaging.
One time, I sent a personalized LinkedIn video message to a prospect. He was so impressed with the effort that he responded immediately, leading to a fruitful meeting and eventually, a deal.
Multi-Threading
Engaging prospects across multiple channels increases your chances of success. Multi-threading ensures you’re visible where your prospects are most active.
A colleague once landed a major client by using a combination of LinkedIn messages, emails, and phone calls. By asking the prospect for their preferred communication method, he switched to texting, which the prospect found more convenient. This personal touch helped build a stronger connection and closed the deal faster.
Here is a link to a recording of “Account Prioritization, Research and Personalization”
What's the best outreach strategy for getting responses?
Getting a response from your outreach efforts is difficult, but not impossible.
Just focus on 3 things - Prioritization, Research and Personalization.
Account Prioritization
- Use Insights and Intent Data: Identify accounts actively looking for solutions like yours based on their internet activities and business priorities and challenges as per reports.
- Score leads: Use AI to assign scores based on criteria like insight relevance, high priority need, and engagement levels.
- Focus on High-Value Accounts: Dedicate more time and resources to high priority accounts
I recall working on a campaign where I treated all leads equally. After weeks of effort, the conversion rate was disappointing. Once I started prioritizing based on insights and signals, my response rates improved significantly, and I closed more deals.
Account Research
- Business Reports: Analyze 10K Reports, Earnings Call and other business reports to identify high priority goals and challenges.
- Use LinkedIn: Look at the prospect’s profile to understand their role and interests.
- Analyze Company News: Check for recent news articles or press releases about the company.
- Understand Industry Trends: Be aware of the broader trends affecting the prospect’s industry.
Account research used to take 4-5 hours of my time earlier… Now it just takes 20 minutes.
Hyper Personalization
- Research Thoroughly: Use LinkedIn and company websites to understand the prospect's role and interests.
- Tailor Your Message: Reference specific details, business priorities or contextual challenges about the prospect or their company.
- Use Multiple Channels: Combine emails, LinkedIn messages, and phone calls for a comprehensive approach.
One time, I sent a personalized LinkedIn message to a prospect referencing a recent blog post they wrote. This caught their attention immediately, leading to a meeting and eventually closing the deal.
Multi-Threading
- Cold Call and Email: Start with a call, then follow up with an email.
- LinkedIn Engagement: Use LinkedIn to send personalized messages, videos, or voice notes.
- Ask for Preferences: During initial calls, ask prospects their preferred communication channels.
Abraham Lincoln once said, "If I had 10 hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first nine sharpening my ax." This principle applies to sales: prepare thoroughly to maximize your effectiveness.
- Customize Signals: Use AI to tailor your research based on specific pain points and needs.
- Prepare Scripts: Develop engaging call scripts and email frameworks based on insights..
In one of our team meetings, we discussed how customizing AI signals helped us identify high-priority accounts. This tailored approach led to a 20% increase in our response rates.
By implementing these strategies, you can improve your outreach efforts, increase response rates, and consistently over-achieve your sales quotas.
What does a new, AI-driven process look like?
Here's a recording of our AE, Szymon Plebaniak, sharing how he exceeded his sales quota by 24% last quarter.
Would you like to evaluate “Evabot AI” for account prioritization, account research and personalization? Book a meeting on the button below.
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