How to Earn the Attention of Today's Buyer

How to Earn the Attention of Today’s Empowered Buyer Instructor: Michael Pici

Inbound Sales Certification Brought to you by HubSpot Academy

1 WHAT IS THE CONNECT STAGE AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Why is connecting in an inbound way actually important?

INBOUND

vs. Focus their prospecting efforts on cold, un-customized emails, and voicemails Effort is spent qualifying buyers on the size of their budget and their authority to spend it

LEGACY CONNECT

Start conversations around the buyer’s plans, goals and challenges Lead with a message personalized to the buyer’s context

42% of surveyed salespeople said that prospecting is the most difficult part of the sales process.

SOURCE: STATE OF INBOUND, 2015

INBOUND

vs. Focus their prospecting efforts on cold, un-customized emails, and voicemails Effort is spent qualifying buyers on the size of their budget and their authority to spend it

LEGACY CONNECT

Start conversations around the buyer’s plans, goals and challenges Lead with a message personalized to the buyer’s context

Inbound Sales Methodology

IDENTIFY CONNECT EXPLORE ADVISE

>>>

AWARENESS > CONSIDERATION > DECISION

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2HOW DO INBOUND SALESPEOPLE EXECUTE THE CONNECT STAGE?

1.  Define your personas

2.  Define the sequences for each persona

3.  Define the outreach content for each sequence

STEPS TO SET UP A CONNECT STRATEGY





Defining your personas is essential to personalizing the sales process for today’s empowered buyer.

BUYER PERSONAS

Company: Recruiting firm Focus: Hiring salespeople Target: Small and medium-sized companies in both the technology and healthcare industries in the U.S. Questions to ask: 1.  What are the different segments of companies you target?

Industry: Technology and healthcare

2.  Who in the company is involved in buying your services? Influencers: VP of Sales, Director of Recruiting, and CEO

EXAMPLE OF SEGMENTING A TARGET MARKET

1.  Persona A: VP of Sales at a technology company

2.  Persona B: Director of Recruiting at a technology company

3.  Persona C: CEO at a technology company

4.  Persona D: VP of Sales at a healthcare company

5.  Persona E: Director of Recruiting at a healthcare company

6.  Persona F: CEO at a healthcare company

EXAMPLE PERSONAS

Start with one segmentation at the company level (like industry) and one at the individual level (like role).

Once the persona structure is in place,

add details about each persona.

Focus on the perspectives of each persona at the awareness stage

of the buyer’s journey.

1.  How do these personas describe the goals or challenges they encounter that align with your company’s offering?

2.  How do these personas educate themselves on their goal or challenge?

3.  What are the implications of inaction by each persona?

4.  Are there common misconceptions these personas have about addressing their goal or challenge?

AWARENESS STAGE PERSONA QUESTIONS

Company: Recruiting firm Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company Questions to ask: 1.  How do these personas describe the goals or challenges they

encounter that align with your company’s offering? The most common challenges Persona A is experiencing that we can help with are increasing the quality of newly hired salespeople, increasing the pace at which the sales team is growing, and re-focusing sales managers’ time from sourcing candidates toward coaching their team.

EXAMPLE OF ADDING DETAIL TO PERSONAS

Company: Recruiting firm Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company Questions to ask: 2.  How do these personas educate themselves on their goal

or challenge? Persona A looks to their industry peers, other senior leaders at their organization, and their board for advice on solving their recruiting challenges. They also look at recommendations in online forums in places like LinkedIn and Quora.


Company: Recruiting firm Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company Questions to ask: 3.  What are the implications of inaction by each persona?

If Persona A does not address their recruiting challenges, they risk missing their quota, de-stabilizing their company’s financial situation, and termination.


Company: Recruiting firm Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company Questions to ask: 4.  Are there common misconceptions these personas have about

addressing their goal or challenge? Persona A believes using an outside recruiting firm is more expensive than their current approach to sourcing candidates. They also believe the quality of candidates will be lower than if they sourced the candidates internally because outside firms don’t completely understand their business.






1.  Which mediums will you use to reach out to each persona?

2.  When will you reach out?

3.  If you don’t connect on the first outreach, when will you try again? How many times will you reach out before you give up?

ASK YOURSELF

We refer to these outreach strategies as your sequences.

Company: Recruiting firm Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company Outreach frequency: 5 times over the course of 2 weeks

EXAMPLE OF A SEQUENCE













•  The type of organization the buyer is from

•  Who the buyer is within that organization

•  The stage the buyer is at in their buying journey

PERSONALIZE THE ENTIRE SALES EXPERIENCE TO THE BUYER’S CONTEXT. THIS INCLUDES:

Take an inventory of your existing content

Reference the buyer at least 2x as much as you mention yourself

End all emails with a question

BEST PRACTICES FOR DEFINING SEQUENCE CONTENT

Keep your outreaches short

Sound human and helpful

Personalize the subject line to the persona’s perspective

Adapt the content to your style and personalize it to the buyer’s context

How can you provide useful content to the buyer if your company does not have much content?

Useful content does not need to be from your company. Helping buyers find high quality content to accelerate their education process is very valuable to them.

A free consultation is a great way to

personalize an offer directly to the buyer’s

area of interest. You do not need a stream of content

to make a personalized offer.

•  Inbound leads

•  Inbound companies

•  Trigger events

•  Common connections

DEVELOPING OUTREACH CONTENT FOR THESE LEAD SOURCES

OUTREACH CONTENT FOR INBOUND LEADS

Accounting for the buyers’ interests in the connect outreach is the most important and most effective form of personalization. In order to add buyer interests to the connect outreach, start by defining the categories of interests buyers may have that your company can actually help with.

Company: Recruiting firm Persona: VP of Sales at a technology company Categories of interest: •  Increase quality of new hires

•  Increase the pace of hiring

•  Decrease cost per hire

•  Reallocate time spent by hiring managers on sourcing to higher value activities

EXAMPLE OF CATEGORIES OF INTEREST

Text on the left, image on the right.

Keep this to one sentence, and make sure you say the sentence exactly, in

your script.

Interest-specific content is so effective, use it to make sure your outreach sequence is that much stronger.

OUTREACH CONTENT FOR INBOUND COMPANIES

“Hi [Buyer Name], Various people within your organization have been reviewing our content on X topic. Based on this area of interest, I thought you and the members of your team may also enjoy [Blog Article A] and [Blog Article B].

EMAIL OR CALL

OUTREACH CONTENT FOR TRIGGER EVENT LEADS

OUTREACH CONTENT FOR COMMON CONNECTIONS

•  One of your customers may refer a potential buyer

•  One of your fellow employees knows the potential buyer

•  An acquaintance outside of your organization knows the potential buyer

DIFFERENT COMMON CONNECTIONS

ACCOUNTING FOR NON-TRADITIONAL MEDIUMS TO CONNECT

The prospect’s company has a blog.

•  You can subscribe to the blog, post new articles on your social media account, and comment on blog articles.

•  You can mention articles written on the blog as part of your outreach to the potential buyer.

The prospect is active in social media.

•  You can send an invitation to connect in LinkedIn, follow the buyer on Twitter, re-tweet posts by the buyer, etc.

•  If the buyer follows you back, you can choose to message the buyer as part of an outreach sequence.

The prospect conducted a

webinar.

You can attend the webinar and send a follow-up email to the buyer regarding the lessons you learned on the webinar.

The prospect hosts or speaks at an

event.

You can attend the event and introduce yourself after the

speech with a contextual comment around points you found interesting.

What do you do when you actually make a connection?

A CONNECT CALL WITH AN INBOUND LEAD

“Hello?”

PROSPECT

“Oh. How can I help you?”

“Oh, yes, I remember.”

“Well we are having trouble winning the top sales talent in the area because we do

not sell expensive products and can’t afford to pay at the top of the scale.”

“Hi Mary. This is Dan from Tyre Recruiting.”

INBOUND SALESPERSON

“You downloaded one of our eBooks earlier today on tips to recruit

engineering talent.”

“What were you looking for help with?”

“Ahh, yes. We just went through this issue with a client of ours in the northeast.

They were a software company with financial software for small businesses.

What have you tried so far?”

A CONNECT CALL WITH AN INBOUND COMPANY

“Hello?”

PROSPECT

“Okay?”

“Really? From who?”

“Maybe Bob in Recruiting.”


INBOUND SALESPERSON

“We have received a few inquiries from people at your company for information on

increasing hiring quality.”

“That’s what I was hoping you could help me with. They did not leave their name?

Is there someone in your organization that might be focused on the issue?”

“Do you know why he may be looking for information on sales hiring quality?”

“We’ve had some issues there.” “Issues?”

A CONNECT CALL WITH A TRIGGER EVENT

“Hello?”

PROSPECT

“Okay?”

“Yes, you need to submit your resume to Bob in Recruiting. The email is on the

job ad.”


INBOUND SALESPERSON

“I just read your new job posting on the Account Executive position.”

“Actually I was not calling about applying to the job. I was calling because we

published a popular ebook amongst your peers on writing job ads that attract

sales rock stars. Based on those best practices, I had a few suggestions

on the ad.” “Oh. Okay! What do you think?”

A CONNECT CALL WITH A COMMON CONNECTION

“Hello?”

PROSPECT

“What can I do for you?”

“He did. Why?”


INBOUND SALESPERSON

“Kevin Harris over at XYZ Partners suggested I reach out to you.”

“I was speaking to him about some of the success we have seen companies

achieve with recruiting salespeople. He mentioned you were struggling in the

area the last time you spoke and suggested I reach out.”

“Ah right, I remember that conversation.” “How is recruiting

salespeople progressing?” “We’re still struggling.”

“On what aspect specifically?”

A CONNECT CALL WITH A PASSIVE LEAD

“Hello?”

PROSPECT

“Okay?”

“I guess. Sure.”


INBOUND SALESPERSON

“I know I am contacting you out of the blue. May I please take 15 seconds of

your time to explain why I am calling and you can determine if it is

worth continuing?”

“Probably more on quality.”

“Typically when I work with sales executives, I find they have a difficult time finding enough salespeople or keeping

the quality high. Is this the case with you?”

“Ah. I just went through that issue with a client in your industry last quarter. How are you defining quality in this case?”

GETTING BUY-IN FOR A LONGER EXPLORATORY CONVERSATION

“We’re struggling to attract enough quality sales candidates to meet our growth

goals.”

PROSPECT

“Not sure I want to share our secrets, but some of the things we’ve done is asking for referrals from our current employees, sending messages through Linkedin and

offering a bonus to our current employees when they refer someone that we hire.

INBOUND SALESPERSON

“I’ve heard that a few times. What have you tried so far?”

“But, that’s not getting you the quality and quantity you need?”

PROSPECT

“It helped us increase the quantity, but not enough. Plus, the quality wasn’t really as high compared to when I do it myself. I’m not sure what to do next. I really don’t

want to lower my quality bar, but I am afraid that might be necessary given the

lack of talent out there.”

INBOUND SALESPERSON

“Sounds like you’re running out of ideas and time to fix this. Is it a high priority at

this point?”

“Based on what you’re doing, I believe we may be able to help you. Would it be good use of your time to talk through

some additional ways you could catch up and then hit that target without

sacrificing quality?”

“Yes. Very high. I need to make 10 hires this quarter and I am way behind where I

should be.”

PROSPECT

“Yes. If you can do that, it would definitely be worth my time.”

INBOUND SALESPERSON

“Okay. I have some availability tomorrow. What time works for you?”

“11 won’t work for me. But, I can do 4PM EST. Should I call you on this number?”

“How about 11 in the morning?”

“That’d be great. Look forward to talking to you.”

•  An email template tool to develop persona templates

•  A CRM that: - Illustrates buyer activity to the salesperson as the salesperson prepares for the outreach - Automatically logs salesperson outreach, especially voicemails and emails

•  An email tool that allows salespeople to setup a sequence and

automate some of its execution

TECHNOLOGY FOR CONNECTING

•  Mail merge

•  Auto-dialers

TECHNOLOGY TO AVOID

1.  Determine which persona the buyer falls into

2.  Identify any interest, common connection, or non-traditional mediums for the buyer

3.  Using the results of steps 1 and 2 above, assemble the sequence plan for the buyer using the recommended template for the respective persona

4.  Using the results of steps 1 and 2 above, assemble the content for each sequence attempt using the recommended content templates

5.  Start executing the sequence

CONNECT STAGE STEPS

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