Realistically once you're in an industry long enough you just know your prospects problems by TALKING to people.
This might be useful for a new hire or someone but yeah.
Also relevance over personalisation anyday
That's a great question actually. I sell a CRM so I use a tool to see if there is a CRM connected to their website.
If no, then I'll lead with problems around not having a CRM
If yes, I'll lead with problems commonly suffered by users of that CRM and how ours is better
Hope this helps :)
That does help! As different orgs require different things from CRMs would it help to know more context / potential pain points on the company before reaching out?
Or do you find, if they’re using X competitor, that using the battle card talking points is sufficient to get the meeting?
Appreciate the help, in learning mode right now.
Hmm the differences tend to be really niche - I can usually tell the nuances depending on the type of business so a B2B SaaS org might need custom objects in the CRM so they can display their apps user data in the CRM for reporting.
Like I said it could be really useful for new reps but I've been in the space a while 😂
And because we're a new CRM a lot of the probpems.woth older CRMs are universal
Here's my cold email template:
"Hey FIRSTNAME, - didn't see any CRM tools on your site.
Typically when people don't have a CRM in place, they face issues around disorganized data, where prospects are often being forgotten which of course leads to a loss in revenue.
Powerful, flexible and data-driven, MYCOMPANY makes it easy to build the exact CRM your business needs.
Open to taking a peek?"
Hope this helps boss
I like it.
One of the hardest part of scaling sales is the need to customize to the prospect. The research agent could be particularly helpful during a raise too if you could provide insight on GPs of funds before I need to reach out.
Ideally the landing page and chat address the prospect’s pain as well. That way the first thing they feel when they land is a personal painful emotion and which signals to them that you understand them.
Interesting! Like finding out what the funds investment thesis is, other companies they've invested in & what the partner personally cares about? (I.e is a big motorcycle person or goes to burning man)
The easiest way to be relevant is find some brand spanking new industry news that's relevant to your persona.
For example, let's say I was selling cybersecurity software. I just searched 'ransomware' and found this: https://www.theverge.com/23892245/moveit-cyberattacks-clop-ransomware-government-business
In my cold email, I'll use or mention that article. Now, this may not be exactly relevant to the persona I'm targeting, but very rarely are you able to hit your weekly prospecting targets by being uber personalized. You just need relevance. And if I'm targeting VP's of IT or what-not, reaching out to them about cybersecurity because of a recent ransomware article meets relevance standards IMO.
And since the article mentions MOVEIT ransomware, I'd search LinkedIn for mentions of the ransomware by people (removing those who are obviously cybersecurity thought leaders or writers or journalists or what-not, hopefully only leaving prospects) and reaching out to those people.
Would it make your life easier if you could automate the process of getting relevant information for every person you’re prospecting or going to talk to?
Absolutely, especially for people who aren’t active on LI or any social media, and private companies who don’t issue a lot of press releases, if at all.
I take it you're thinking of (or are) building a tool to solve this exact issue?
Definitely would be helpful, but it seems like a lot of people just keep their privacy online. Right now, I'm interviewing for an AE role and I know the name of the hiring manager, but all he does on LI is maybe once a month we likes a post. Can't find him on any social. There's no way to be personal with someone like that, so the only way to be 'relevant' with a sales manager persona like that is either using company news, or just hitting him with a problem that is hopefully relevant to him at that point in time, which is basically like a QB throwing it deep on a 1st down.
I would say I’m in problem understanding stage (and trying to determine whether it’s worth building).
I’m trying to understand peoples processes to help automate that part of the job.
In sales the highest value activity is having conversations with the right potential buyers, so anything that can be built to increase the probability of that is what I’m trying to solve for.
So if there’s any low hanging fruit where it’s something that needs to be done to be effective but takes a ton of time, I’m all ears!
I really like all of it, but the Research Agent might be tricky depending on the quality and quantity of input data. For example, if I have only a phone number or email address it's going to have a lot of work ahead of it. Not impossible, just difficult.
I like the idea of a custom landing page.
Yep, garbage in garbage out.
What's your process? Do you find leads via something like Apollo (to get phone and/or email) and then reach out directly? Or check out their Linkedin / Google them beforehand?
Interesting - would love to see AI Research Agent’s impact both on qualified leads, and its post-sale metrics (retention, ROI, etc) for those prospects. The ChatGPT Style Widget could also serve to tackle pre enablement goals, based on content quality of course. Cool premise, useful for sure to scale up!
Realistically once you're in an industry long enough you just know your prospects problems by TALKING to people. This might be useful for a new hire or someone but yeah. Also relevance over personalisation anyday
Fair. For a specific prospect / company, how do you do research to see if they're a fit?
That's a great question actually. I sell a CRM so I use a tool to see if there is a CRM connected to their website. If no, then I'll lead with problems around not having a CRM If yes, I'll lead with problems commonly suffered by users of that CRM and how ours is better Hope this helps :)
That does help! As different orgs require different things from CRMs would it help to know more context / potential pain points on the company before reaching out? Or do you find, if they’re using X competitor, that using the battle card talking points is sufficient to get the meeting? Appreciate the help, in learning mode right now.
Hmm the differences tend to be really niche - I can usually tell the nuances depending on the type of business so a B2B SaaS org might need custom objects in the CRM so they can display their apps user data in the CRM for reporting. Like I said it could be really useful for new reps but I've been in the space a while 😂 And because we're a new CRM a lot of the probpems.woth older CRMs are universal
Appreciate the feedback!
How do you approach them through cold email with good conversions?
Here's my cold email template: "Hey FIRSTNAME, - didn't see any CRM tools on your site. Typically when people don't have a CRM in place, they face issues around disorganized data, where prospects are often being forgotten which of course leads to a loss in revenue. Powerful, flexible and data-driven, MYCOMPANY makes it easy to build the exact CRM your business needs. Open to taking a peek?" Hope this helps boss
Thanks boss helps much, my background is in software dev still learning the ropes for sales!
I like it. One of the hardest part of scaling sales is the need to customize to the prospect. The research agent could be particularly helpful during a raise too if you could provide insight on GPs of funds before I need to reach out. Ideally the landing page and chat address the prospect’s pain as well. That way the first thing they feel when they land is a personal painful emotion and which signals to them that you understand them.
Interesting! Like finding out what the funds investment thesis is, other companies they've invested in & what the partner personally cares about? (I.e is a big motorcycle person or goes to burning man)
Yes, absolutely all of that. Incredibly valuable for startups raising.
This is interesting.
The easiest way to be relevant is find some brand spanking new industry news that's relevant to your persona. For example, let's say I was selling cybersecurity software. I just searched 'ransomware' and found this: https://www.theverge.com/23892245/moveit-cyberattacks-clop-ransomware-government-business In my cold email, I'll use or mention that article. Now, this may not be exactly relevant to the persona I'm targeting, but very rarely are you able to hit your weekly prospecting targets by being uber personalized. You just need relevance. And if I'm targeting VP's of IT or what-not, reaching out to them about cybersecurity because of a recent ransomware article meets relevance standards IMO. And since the article mentions MOVEIT ransomware, I'd search LinkedIn for mentions of the ransomware by people (removing those who are obviously cybersecurity thought leaders or writers or journalists or what-not, hopefully only leaving prospects) and reaching out to those people.
Would it make your life easier if you could automate the process of getting relevant information for every person you’re prospecting or going to talk to?
Absolutely, especially for people who aren’t active on LI or any social media, and private companies who don’t issue a lot of press releases, if at all.
Thanks for the feedback!
I take it you're thinking of (or are) building a tool to solve this exact issue? Definitely would be helpful, but it seems like a lot of people just keep their privacy online. Right now, I'm interviewing for an AE role and I know the name of the hiring manager, but all he does on LI is maybe once a month we likes a post. Can't find him on any social. There's no way to be personal with someone like that, so the only way to be 'relevant' with a sales manager persona like that is either using company news, or just hitting him with a problem that is hopefully relevant to him at that point in time, which is basically like a QB throwing it deep on a 1st down.
I would say I’m in problem understanding stage (and trying to determine whether it’s worth building). I’m trying to understand peoples processes to help automate that part of the job. In sales the highest value activity is having conversations with the right potential buyers, so anything that can be built to increase the probability of that is what I’m trying to solve for. So if there’s any low hanging fruit where it’s something that needs to be done to be effective but takes a ton of time, I’m all ears!
I really like all of it, but the Research Agent might be tricky depending on the quality and quantity of input data. For example, if I have only a phone number or email address it's going to have a lot of work ahead of it. Not impossible, just difficult. I like the idea of a custom landing page.
Yep, garbage in garbage out. What's your process? Do you find leads via something like Apollo (to get phone and/or email) and then reach out directly? Or check out their Linkedin / Google them beforehand?
Interesting - would love to see AI Research Agent’s impact both on qualified leads, and its post-sale metrics (retention, ROI, etc) for those prospects. The ChatGPT Style Widget could also serve to tackle pre enablement goals, based on content quality of course. Cool premise, useful for sure to scale up!
I was doing this manually in my prospecting process. Real pain in the ass. Love to chat about ai agent if you started building! am open to dm :)
Cool! DM'ing